A Tale of the Stolen River
Syamsiah and Pandi live a simple, happy life in Sepaku, East Kalimantan, until the building of Indonesia's new capital reaches their land and their water.
Documentary director & photographer · Bali & Jakarta, Indonesia
Documentaries about how we live with one another, and with everything else.
Mahatma Putra is an Indonesian documentary director and photographer based in Bali & Jakarta, Indonesia. His films, from Batak (2012) to A Tale of the Stolen River (2025), follow people at the margins of large forces: migration, politics, land, and the quiet work of holding a life together.
Selected films
Full filmography
Terpejam untuk Melihat
A political and ecological meditation on berkesalingan, the idea that everything in this universe depends on everything else.
Atas Nama Daun
Five points of view on cannabis in Indonesia: medical, legal, religious, cultural and personal. It opens a space for discussion, not for a verdict.
Photography
All series
Latest exhibition
anātman — A Photography Exhibition
Anātman: without self, without core. Nothing is eternal, everything changes from moment to moment. What stays is connection, gratitude, and a compassion that reaches the living and the non-living alike.
Black and white, from the series that became the book REINKARNASI.
The book
Pre-orderREINKARNASI
Twenty years of photographs, gathered into one black-and-white sequence. A limited first edition is open for pre-order.
Reserve a copy