Documentary about Indonesia wins top award
Documentary about Indonesia wins top award
Agencies, The Hague
Stand van de Maan (The Shape of the Moon), a film by Dutch
director Leonard Retel Helmrich about the impact of political and
social upheaval on an Indonesian family, won top honors at the
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) on Friday.
In the film, which took the Joris Ivens award for best
documentary picture, Helmrich shows world events erupting into
the personal life of a widowed Christian woman, Rumidjah, when
her youngest son converts to Islam and marries a Muslim, and the
two are driven apart.
The woman considers leaving Jakarta for the countryside, but
feels obligated to remain for the sake of her young
granddaughter.
While the 92-minute film gives an intimate portrayal of family
life, shots of Jakarta, student and radical demonstrations, it
also provides insight into political life in the world's largest
Muslim country, home to bloody sectarian conflicts in recent
years.
Helmrich, whose father is Dutch and mother Javanese, also
documented the lives of the same family in 2002's De Stand van de
Zon (Eye of the Day), with a third and final documentary planned.
Some observers noted that the choice of the film was
particularly noteworthy following the slaying of Dutch filmmaker
Theo van Gogh, who had criticized Islamic practices, which has
fueled tensions in the Netherlands.
IDFA is billed as the world's biggest documentary festival,
with around 120,000 tickets sold this year and around 2,000 film
professionals attending.
The IDFA festival, ending on Sunday, this year screened
completed films that had secured financing through the forum in
previous years.
Other films that were honored included best short documentary
for Bulgaria's Georgi and the Butterflies; the public's choice
award for The Yes Men from the U.S.; best debut award for Podul
Peste Tisa from Romania; and the jury award for Finland's The
Three Rooms of Melancholy.
A new youth film prize went to "Nabila," about a young Muslim
woman in Sweden who faces conflicts with her family, school, and
racists over her burgeoning career as a rapper.
-- www.idfa.nl