Galang, a young man, is consumed with guilt after leaving his sister alone at a concert, where she died in a human stampede. Out of vengeance and curiosity, he sets out to discover the truth about his sister's untimely death by pretending to be a fan of a rock and metal underground band Axfiksia. Galang meets Asmara, the manager of the band, who accepts him as a crew member. As Galang gets to know both the band and underground music scene, he slowly but surely finds the answers he has been looking for, while simultaneously learning more about himself. Galang is an introspective journey about coming to peace with grief that also addresses-and challenges- stereotypes attached around rock and metal music.—kevin-78199
Bandung, 2008. Galang (19 years old) feels regret and deep sadness after he left his older sister,Maryam (21 years old), at an underground music concert which turned out to be chaotic, even costingthe lives of some audiences, including hers. Before the event started, Maryam had told Galang howmuch she idolized the band AXFIKSIA, especially the vocalist, IRFAN (35 years old), and had askedGalang to accompany her to the concert. Who would have thought that that day was the last timeGalang saw his sister.Being blamed by the family, Galang felt more guilty, and decided to find out about the bandAXFIKSIA and its vocalist. Galang came to the court and witnessed the band personnel and eventorganizers being prosecuted by the Prosecutor. Without them knowing, Galang glared at the faces heconsidered to be the killers of his sister. His attention was especially focused on Irfan.A couple days later, Galang met the band's manager, Asmara (30 years old). He claimed to bea big fan and wanted to be involved as a crew for the AXFIKSIA band even though he was not beingpaid. Galang lied about his taste in music, and did not tell about his sister who was one of the victimsof the tragedy at the AXFIKSIA concert. After some thoughts, Asmara finally agreed.But a few months after the incident, this genre of music was officially banned in Bandung. Thesituation was also getting more difficult for Galang when his father found out that Galang also liked themusic genre, and forced Galang to leave the house. Ironically, all these hard times made Galang slowlybegan to understand how Maryam felt about the genre of this particular music.The difficulty of staging a concert in Bandung, made Asmara take the initiative to hold acommemorating concert event for the late incident, in a quite remote place. This event was supportedby the music community leaders, but Irfan didn't agree and wanted to disband AXFIKSIA for his ownselfish reason. Asmara then asked Galang to persuade Irfan so he could perform at the event. In hismission to melt Irfan's heart, Galang sees another side of the band's vocalist. And this made Galangfelt a mixture of empathy and anger.In the midst of preparing for the concert, Asmara found out about Galang's dishonesty in his tasteof music and the truth about his sister's death. Asmara expelled Galang from the group's basecampand forced him to return home. At the same time, Irfan's whereabout was unknown. Could Galangpersuade Irfan to join the concert, that could help rid society's stigma of the music genre? And wouldby knowing Irfan, Galang be able to forgive himself?
