“Annisa”, interview with the co-director Sam Manacsa

“Annisa” offers one of the most intimate and sensory experiences among the short films developed through the Indonesian collaborative program Next Step Studio.

Co-directed by Filipino filmmaker Sam Manacsa and Indonesian actor-director Reza Rahadian, the film follows a blind teenage girl living in a crowded neighbourhood in Jakarta as she gradually seeks her voice during a local community festival.

For Sam Manacsa, the central challenge was never to reduce the character to her blindness, but rather to construct the cinematic language around her emotional perspective.

“It was very important that we stayed grounded to the feelings of Annisa herself,” he explained during the interview.

The protagonist is portrayed by a young, non-professional actress who shares the character’s name and many personal characteristics. According to Sam Manacsa, that connection deeply influenced the film’s approach.

Rather than emphasising visual absence, the filmmakers became interested in the richness of sound, texture and emotional perception that shapes Annisa’s relationship with the world around her.

Sound as emotional architecture

One of the film’s defining elements is its intricate sound design. In “Annisa”, sound is not simply atmospheric support but a primary storytelling tool.

The crowded neighbourhood festival becomes a dense sonic landscape filled with music, voices, movement and overlapping emotional energies. Through this environment, the audience is invited to experience the world in a way that mirrors Annisa’s own navigation of space.

Sam Manacsa revealed that sound was already central during the writing process itself.

“A lot of the script was really us writing the soundscape more than the landscape,” he noted.

The screenplay, only ten pages long, focused heavily on sensory detail. During shooting and editing, the directors continued expanding the sonic layers, searching for increasingly immersive ways to place the audience inside Annisa’s emotional reality.

At the same time, the filmmakers were careful not to isolate the protagonist from her surroundings. The goal was not to portray her as disconnected from the community, but rather to show how she actively inhabits and interprets it.

The festival atmosphere, therefore, becomes both overwhelming and liberating: a chaotic environment where Annisa slowly begins to recognise her own place.

A story about growing up, not limitation

Throughout the interview, Sam Manacsa emphasised that “Annisa” is fundamentally a coming-of-age story.

“All we wanted to talk about was her growing up,” he explained.

The film deliberately avoids framing its protagonist through pity or symbolic representation. Instead, Annisa emerges as a teenager like any other: curious, humorous, uncertain and emotionally sensitive.

Her blindness is part of her experience, but never the totality of her identity.

For Sam Manacsa, maintaining that balance was essential because the emotional heart of the story lies elsewhere: in the universal process of adolescence and self-discovery.

Annisa spends much of her time isolated within familiar routines, often absorbed by her phone and reluctant to step outside her comfort zone. The film gradually follows her movement toward participation, connection and visibility within her community.

That process of being seen and accepted becomes one of the short film’s most delicate emotional threads.

“To find that space and to be accepted is something beautiful,” Sam Manacsa reflected.

The film ultimately suggests that belonging is not simply about social inclusion, but about discovering environments where personal expression becomes possible.

Co-directing through trust and sensitivity

Plot