In a state-of-the-art recording studio in South Jakarta, hidden behind a nondescript door, the air smelled of clove cigarettes and intense focus. It was 2016, and a cultural tightrope act was underway. The team at Walt Disney Pictures Indonesia, led by a fiery local casting director named Dewi, wasn't just dubbing Moana . They were translating the very soul of the Pacific for a nation of over 17,000 islands.
After the credits rolled, there were no complaints about the dubbing. There was only applause and the sound of families discussing merantau . Dewi, Rizky, Maisha, and Iszur stood in the back of the theater. No one congratulated them on a "good translation." Instead, a young man walked up and simply said, "Itu cerita kita." (That's our story). Moana Dubbing Indonesia
Then came the casting for Moana herself. Hundreds auditioned. They needed a voice that was young but weathered, curious but strong, gentle but capable of commanding a demigod. They found her in Maisha Kanna, a 16-year-old actress from Bandung with a surprisingly resonant alto. Maisha had never sailed a day in her life, but she understood the feeling of being pulled between a parent’s expectations and an inner compass. Her first read of "How Far I’ll Go" left the sound engineers in stunned silence. In a state-of-the-art recording studio in South Jakarta,
A little girl in the front row, maybe six years old, stood up. She didn't sing along. She just placed her small hand over her heart. Her mother, an immigrant from a coastal village in Flores, wept silently. They were translating the very soul of the
The first challenge arrived with the film's title: Moana . In Indonesian, the name had to feel both foreign and familiar. But the real hurdle was the music. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics were a masterpiece of English wordplay. The task of translating "How Far I’ll Go" fell to a young, bespectacled lyricist named Rizky. He knew a direct translation would be a disaster. "It's not about words," he told Dewi. "It's about rasa —the feeling."
The film premiered in Jakarta on a humid November night. The theater was packed with families, film critics, and skeptical purists who believed dubbing ruined the original art. For the first ten minutes, there was polite silence. Then, Maui made his first bakso joke. The theater erupted.