There’s an idleness about the opening of Ena Sendijarević’s latest work which, in itself, speaks to the experience of Dutch colonials in Indonesia. Beguiled by the beauty of the jungle, its trees so tightly enmeshed that they almost conceal the river flowing through it, we are drawn into a landscape where the hum of mosquitos is omnipresent, where nothing can escape the suffocating heat. There a group of local men are setting up a trap, dangling a piece of meat from a tree, luring in a tiger for a pampered boy in linens and pith helmet to shoot.

The boy is Karel (Rio Kaj Den Haas), the brown-skinned son of sugar plantation owner Jan (Hans Dagelet), who proudly carries him home upon his shoulders as his servants struggle with the weight of the slain beast. Jan adores the boy, moulds him in his image, invites him to laugh along as he.