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