When the water horse seeks a new home (film screening)

This film screening will be followed by a 30 minute discussion with the academic leads for the film –

Gerhard Hoffstaedter and Antje Missbach. Registration not required.

About this film

When the water horse seeks a new home (2026/25 minutes/Indonesia)

Writer and director: Andrianus ‘Oetjoe’ Merdhi 

Academic leads: Antje Missbach and Gerhard Hoffstaedter

People have traversed the sea by boat for centuries, often covering vast distances with rudimentary means, surviving by skill and luck. Maritime crossings now attract heightened academic and policy attention due to their real and perceived perilousness compared to overland migration. The sea is assumed specifically dangerous due to extreme weather and disorienting remoteness from land. Moreover, refugee voyages are more disaster-prone still, given their insufficient equipment, lack of shelter, and absence of public oversight. 

This documentary captures the maritime passages of Rohingya refugees navigating the Andaman Sea. Reconstructing events through narrative interviews with several protagonists reveals uncertainties, interruptions and unexpected encounters at sea. Stranded aboard, passengers face hunger, dehydration, existential fear, and rapid deterioration of health. The documentary focuses particularly on hostile receptions by the local population in Aceh, Indonesia, a region that itself once produced large numbers of refugees. By following the newly arrived refugees and listening to their plans and aspirations, the documentary shows why Rohingya refugees undertake such risky journeys in the first place. Beyond the specific human story of Rohingya displacement, it raises broader questions about movement, loss and resilience. 

About the speakers

Gerhard Hoffstaedter is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Anthropology Major Convenor in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. His research spans refugee politics, Muslim identity, and forced migration in Southeast Asia, with particular focus in Malaysia and the broader Malay world. He is a former Lee Kong Chian NUS–Stanford Fellow and Australian Research Council DECRA recipient. His monograph Modern Muslim Identities: Negotiating Religion and Ethnicity in Malaysia (NIAS Press, 2011) examined the intersections of religious identity and state governance in Malaysia, and his forthcoming book with Stanford University Press is an ethnography of the Rohingya and Chin refugee experience in Malaysia. He has published widely in journals including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and Citizenship Studies, and contributes public-facing analysis to outlets including The Diplomat and the Lowy Institute. He co-directs the Volkswagen Foundation–funded Maritime Refugee Lab.

Antje Missbach is Professor of Sociology at Bielefeld University, specialising in the study of migration and forced displacement in the Asia-Pacific region. Next to pre- and postdoctoral appointments at Humboldt University, Heidelberg University and Monash University (Melbourne), she was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Melbourne Law School (2011-2014). In 2013, she was awarded an Australian Research Council Early Career Researcher Award (ARC DECRA, 2014-2017). In 2017, she received the William J. Holland Prize and the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship. She is the author of Troubled transit: asylum seekers stuck in Indonesia (ISEAS Yusof Publishing, 2015) and The Criminalisation of People Smuggling in Indonesia and Australia: Asylum out of reach (Routledge, 2022); co-author of Indonesia: State and Society in Transition (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020) and co-editor of Refugee Protection in Southeast Asia: Between Humanitarianism and Sovereignty (Berghahn, 2024). Together with Gerhard Hoffstaedter, she has initiated the Maritime Refugee Lab, a multi-disciplinary network of scholars for theorising (im)mobilities at sea.

All enquiries should be directed to rsc-outreach@qeh.ox.ac.uk