New Pessimism Studio

Formed between factual and fictional, future and past, material and incorporeal, scientific and magic, Monisme reflects the intermingled relationships between people in Mount Merapi.

Modelled after Carl Sagan's classic TV series Cosmos, this film displaces the dominance of Western science and embraces pluralistic worldviews - from tropical Sufi mysticism and monorealism to theories of quantum mechanics.

In an alternative future of Indonesia, when nuclear technology reaches the point of generating an artificial sun for endless energy resources, a lazy philosopher Sajad Ali wandering around seeks a place to sleep. Told in a semi-essayistic approach, Sajad Ali reflects the dynamics of nuclear technology in the future, the politics of materiality through the search for minerals such as thorium in Indonesia, as well as the complexity of nuclear issue in the Global South and its tension with ecology, energy consumption, nation-state, and productivity.