Garin says govt leaves artistes in cold

Garin says govt leaves artistes in cold

JP/20/GARIN

Garin: Govt leaves artistes out in cold

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Irked by the government's lack of attention toward culture and
the arts, noted filmmaker Garin Nugroho has lambasted the
country's leaders by labeling them as culture-blind people who
have never acquired a taste for even the simplest of the refined
arts.

Speaking during a discussion organized by the National
Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) last Saturday, Garin
said that the leaders' lack of exposure to the arts had resulted
in their inability to devise a comprehensive culture strategy to
stave off the onslaught of globalization.

"The most obvious indication is that none of the country's
leaders seems ever to have been to Taman Ismail Marzuki," Garin
said, referring to the city's largest cultural center.

Garin said that as a result of such ignorance, the country's
artists were unable to speak on equal terms with fellow artists
from neighboring countries.

"In places like Thailand, the government uses the tax on
screenings of Hollywood films to develop its local film
industry," he said.

The filmmaker compared the current leaders with founding
fathers like the country's first president, Sukarno, his deputy
Mohammad Hatta or prime minister Sutan Syahrir, who were known to
be serious arts aficionados.

Garin recently felt the effect of the government's ignorance
of the arts, he said, when he was left alone to confront a
firebrand Hindu group that accused him of blasphemy.

No one from the government has yet made any comment on the
incident.