The Rainbow Troops

A small school in the village of Gantong on the island of Belitung is about to close: the law requires at least ten students and there are nine. The tenth appears at the door at the last moment and the school stays open. The film follows those ten children through the years that follow: the tin mine, poverty, a building the teachers are trying to hold up, and the ambitions formed regardless. Riri Riza adapted Andrea Hirata's 2005 novel, which draws largely on the author's own school years and sold more than a million copies in Indonesia in the years after publication. The film opened on 25 September 2008 and became one of the most-watched productions in Indonesian cinema. Rather than turning the teachers into heroes, the telling shows the conditions: the roof leaks, there are no books, the state is absent. Cut Mini plays the teacher. Who it's for: Viewers who like drama built on education and poverty, Indonesian cinema, and films working with child performers. Who it's not for: The emotional steering is overt and the ending plays openly for effect. It runs long and the narrative spreads out at times.