Yuni

Seventeen-year-old Yuni has a close group of girlfriends, does well at school and is obsessed with the colour purple. It is time, however, to ‘grow up’ and her environment slowly but surely makes that clear. Yuni receives her first marriage proposal and at school, her teacher asks her to take her academic future seriously. If her grades are good enough, she might be able to enrol in a prestigious university. Her traditional grandmother, on the other hand, thinks of an arranged marriage as the guarantee for a good future.

Yuni and her friends love lying in the grass and fantasising about boys, sex and orgasms. These innocent chats are not evident in the conservative town where they live. Because of a peak in extramarital teen pregnancies, the school has taken a package of measures aimed at discouraging sexual relations between boys and girls. They do not prevent the girls from exploring and Yuni has her eye on the younger Yoga, a hardworking but shy boy in her school. In many ways, he is her antipole: quiet, sensitive and with a feel for poetry. Yuni enjoys her secret freedom, but is unable to escape the strict, watchful eye of her community. As an early summer rain, she is driven to bloom and has to make a decision.