Sedap Malam

Sedap Malam
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Directed by	Ratna Asmara
Produced by	Djamaluddin Malik
Written by	Andjar Asmara
Starring	Sukarsih M. Pandji Anom ()
Production company	Persari Film Corporation
Release date	14 February 1951
Country	Indonesia
Language	Indonesia

Sedap Malam (Indonesian for Sweetness of the Night) is a 1951 film directed by Ratna Asmara and produced by Djamaluddin Malik for Persari. Starring Sukarsih and M. Pandji Anom (), it follows a woman who descends into prostitution after her husband marries another woman. It was both Persari's first production and the first film directed by a woman in Indonesian history.

Over a period of several years, Patmah has worked to help her husband Tamin build his book-selling business into a large printing house. However, in the early 1940s, after the business begins to succeed Tamin takes on a younger wife. Outraged at her husband's polygyny, Patmah abandons him and goes to work as a nurse, leaving their four-year-old daughter Nuraini with her friend, Tinah.

During the Japanese occupation, Patmah is promised that she can receive further training as a nurse in Tokyo. Upon arrival, however, she discovers that the young nurses are actually intended as comfort women. Patmah thus spends the remainder of World War II satisfying the sexual desires of Japanese soldiers. After the war, when she returns to Indonesia, Patmah is unable to reintegrate into society and continues work as a prostitute.

One day, Patmah hears that the now-adult Nuraini is to be wed to Tamin, now a widower; both are unaware of their blood relations. She succeeds in breaking up the planned marriage and in arranging for Nuraini to wed Burhan, a young author whom Nuraini loves. Patmah is tried for prostitution shortly afterwards and eventually dies of a sexually transmitted disease.

Sedap Malam was directed by Ratna Asmara, a former stage and film actress who had starred in such films as Kartinah (1940) and Djaoeh di Mata (1949), in her directorial debut. The film thus became the first in Indonesian history to be directed by a woman; previously, women had been limited to acting roles. The film was also the first production by Persari (Perseroan Artis Indonesia, or Indonesian Artists Corporation), a production house headed by Djamaluddin Malik. This was his first foray into film, though he had backed the travelling theatre troupe Bintang Timur during the Indonesian National Revolution.