After an extensive research online and which platform to use, the team found the right movie with an appropriate theme. They picked a date and time that would work for an international audience, and that day finally arrived on Saturday the 7^th at 13:30hrs GMT. 

Award-winning Cahaya dari Timur: Beta Maluku (Lights from the East: I am Maluku) was chosen; a bittersweet story set in Maluku. The movie portrayed an important event in recent history, when in early 1999, sectarian conflicts between Muslims and Christians took place. Main character Sani Tawainella, convincingly played by Chico Jericho, decides to distract the local youth of his village and has the challenge to unite Muslim and Christian players through football.

Before the event, the audience was provided with a fun fact sheet including a vocabulary list with key words translated into English (see attachment). This way the Bahasa Basudara students were able to use these to tell their own stories afterwards in English. 

A great mix of students and tutors turned up from and beyond the Moluccan islands. All were given a warm welcome and virtual zoom backgrounds to get into the movie night mood. During the film emotions were running high and a few tears were shed, because of the setting, storyline and realistic acting. 

After the film, there was time for a quiz with 10 questions in English, all related to the movie. The atmosphere became quite competitive and bung Jeff Malaihollo, who has seen the movie for the 5^th time, turned out to be the ultimate winner. 

The event was closed with a lovely chat where the students of Maluku shared their thoughts and feelings about the movie and the time during the conflicts. The people outside Maluku asked some interesting questions, they for example wanted to know whether there was any psychological help available after the conflicts and what the current situation was like.

We all agreed that Beta Maluku is an amazing movie and a story that needs to be shared inside and outside Maluku. Someone commented that this movie is Our Story as it pointedly represented what happened in the past, but at the same time was also very uplifting, as it showed the unity in Maluku. 

Thank you for coming everyone! The next movie night is in the making and we hope more of you will be able to join us then!