Harmayn finds documentaries food for the soul

By Tam Notosusanto

JAKARTA (JP): Some time ago, Shanty Harmayn was having a conversation with someone about documentary films. The person mentioned a documentary film he has seen, Oliver Stone's JFK. That made Shanty flinch.

"I wanted to comment that JFK is actually a feature film," said Shanty, a 33-year-old with an M.A. in documentary films from Stanford University. "But instead, I thought, there must be a reason why he was saying it is a documentary. Probably he meant to say that it's a non-fictional film, one based on a true story."

Being a documentary filmmaker here in Indonesia, and also a professor of documentary production at the Jakarta Art Institute (IKJ), Shanty has had to come to terms with how the majority of people here perceive documentary films.

"It's not an issue of misconceptions, really," she said. "My problem is that people have a very limited way of looking at documentaries. When asked about documentaries, they would generally say, oh, the Discovery channel, wildlife, flora and fauna. If you just have one definition, you're not expanding your options. Documentary is a form of creativity, so you should not take the creativity out of it."

Shanty, however, does not consider herself the principal authority on documentaries here, she prefers the discourse on documentaries to be the ongoing debate that it already is.

"If we say that this person is wrong and that person is right, we are only limiting ourselves," she said. "So let's just have an open discussion about it."

Which is what she and some friends are currently organizing. In late July-early August of this year, Yayasan Masyarakat Mandiri Film Indonesia (the Indonesian Independent Film Community Foundation), which she is a member of, collaborating with some other foundations such as Yayasan Sejati -- belonging to renowned documentary filmmaker Dea Sudarman -- and the international multi-media project Libraries on Fire, will hold a Cultural Documentary Film Seminar. This three-day seminar, taking place in Jakarta between July 28 and July 30 and in Yogyakarta between Aug. 1 and Aug. 3, will consist of workshops that will mostly discuss the many and varied aspects of documentary filmmaking such as how to document culture, how to document tradition, how to document values, etc.

Made possible by financial support from the Ford Foundation and technical assistance from the Japan Foundation, this seminar will screen some documentary films as well as invite distinguished speakers such as L. Somi Roy, a documentary film curator and executive director of the Robert Flaherty Seminar in New York and San Francisco-based independent documentary filmmaker Les Blank.

Shanty talks excitedly about this seminar, just as she is excited talking about her co-director for the seminar, Rhoda Grauer. They are collaborating on Libraries on Fire, a three-part series focusing on world traditions, mainly oral traditions, that is based upon the saying "When an elder dies, a book burns." The three parts of the series will tell three different stories set in three locations in Indonesia. This multi-media project will not only produce a film, but also books and a CD-ROM on the subject.

"I haven't been shooting a documentary for a long time, and now, coming back from location, I feel alive again, I feel recharged," Shanty said.

"Because you feel you're one with the nature, with the people. It accelerates my creativity in respect of my other projects. To me, making documentaries is really like food for the soul."

Shanty has wanted to be in films ever since her elementary school days, when she was overwhelmed one day by Antonioni's Blow-Up. She graduated from the University of Indonesia with a degree in mass communications in 1990, and after working some time at Citibank, she was accepted at Stanford in 1992, where she studied documentary until she graduated in 1994. Her thesis film, made with her two American fellow students, was entitled Bedhaya, and offers a look inside a Javanese kraton.

The film was shown at prestigious events such as the Margaret Mead Film Festival and the Dance on Film Festival, both in New York.

But her life is not pre-occupied solely with documentaries. Even when she was in documentary film school, she knew that she could produce feature films as well.

"This is just the path that I took, documentary," she said. "Look, even filmmakers like Garin Nugroho, Mira Lesmana, Nan T. Achnas, all had experience making documentaries before. It shows that just like feature films, documentary is all about stories. I truly believe documentary is a form of storytelling. We tell stories about something that really happened, that is actual, and it's about how we as filmmakers perceive that reality and represent it to the audience in the form of a documentary."

That's why besides producing documentaries such as Nafas Batu Merapi (The Breath of Merapi) and Bumiku Satu (My One Earth), she was also involved in the production of the big-screen feature Kuldesak and the television movie Mencari Pelangi (Looking for the Rainbow). She won awards at the Indonesian Television Festival for both Bumiku Satu and Mencari Pelangi.

And who can forget the Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFFest), which she co-chaired last year, an ambitious, unprecedented event here that showcased over 65 films from 15 different countries?

Shanty's schedule for this year looks quite full. Besides Libraries on Fire and the seminar, and preparing for the second JIFFest, she and her three-year-old company, Salto Productions, is making a feature film called Pasir Berbisik (Whispering Sand), a longtime pet project of Shanty and director Nan T. Achnas. The film is currently shooting with stars Christine Hakim and Slamet Rahardjo on location in places such as Yogyakarta, and Mount Bromo.

Just what sort of amazing energy can drive this woman to become involved in so many different areas of filmmaking?

"Oh, I see all these different fields as one. Whether it's producing a documentary film, producing a feature film, organizing a film festival, I am always focused on my love for film and my love for storytelling," she said emphatically.