Comedian Tretan Muslim Weeps Over Hajj Quota Corruption

Comedian and founder of Tretan Universe Production, Tretan Muslim, wept over the corruption case involving hajj quotas while acting in his first feature film, ‘Foufo’. He said the real-world scandal helped him access the emotional depth required to play the lead character in the film about an unidentified flying object (UFO) passenger. ‘But I didn’t expect that the role would have no comedy at all. That’s interesting. Instead, they asked for a lot of drama,’ Muslim said when met in the Senayan area of Jakarta on Wednesday. Muslim plays a character named Muslim, a scrap collector from Madura who struggles to finance his mother’s hajj pilgrimage. Initially, he imagined the health condition of his own mother in real life to naturally induce tears during filming. He felt sadness because he could not send his biological mother on the hajj due to her declining physical fitness. ‘In this film, I send my mother on hajj, played by Ibu Siti Kam. But in real life, I can’t send her because her physical condition is not fit enough,’ Muslim said. He added, ‘And the hajj quotas are being corrupted too, you know. That’s sad, Bro, so many people can’t go on hajj.’