Ariani Darmawan Returns to Filmmaking With Family Drama ‘Jani Be Good’

Ariani Darmawan is returning to filmmaking with a story shaped by the years she spent away from it. According to Variety, the Indonesian filmmaker’s first feature, “Jani Be Good,” is screening in the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Asian Future competition after she paused her directing career for more than a decade to raise a family.

The drama centers on four women spanning three generations of a Chinese-Indonesian family, exploring motherhood and the things left unspoken between them. Darmawan draws on her experience of stepping away from filmmaking, making the feature both a return to directing and an exploration of family life from multiple generational perspectives.