The Night Bazaar
Every night, a market appears on the edge of Jakarta that disappears by morning. Inside it, three women run businesses that would be impossible in the daylight city.
Production Journey
Idea
Research
Development
Financing
Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
Festival
Released
The Story
In Jakarta, as in many Southeast Asian cities, the night market is an institution — a space that operates under different rules than the regulated daytime economy. On tables that appear at dusk and vanish by dawn, everything from street food to spare parts to traditional medicine is traded.
The Night Bazaar follows three women over the course of a year: a secondhand electronics dealer, a traditional herbalist, and a seamstress who works through the night making clothes for factory workers who cannot take time off during the day. Together, their stories form a portrait of economic survival in the interstices of formal commerce.
Why This Story Matters
The informal economy employs more than half of Indonesia's workforce. Yet most films about Indonesian cities focus on the formal — on offices, malls, development. The Night Bazaar is an attempt to make visible the enormous, creative, essential work that happens outside the frame.
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What This Story Needs
Location — Night Market Site
JakartaSound Recordist — Night Work
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$8,100 raised of $20,000 goal
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