Indonesian Film Festival takes a risk in Australia

Indonesian Film Festival takes a risk in Australia

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia

The organizers of Indonesian Film Festival (IFFEST) 2002 took a
leap into the dark when they decided to stage their festival in
Melbourne, Australia. At first glance the risk seemed two-fold.
The festival might fail to attract local interest, Melbourne
having enough high-caliber international films showing all year
round. And even if it did attract a substantial audience, it
might be regarded as just another bunch of exotic films.

The first few days have proven that the calculated risk taken
by the organizers is paying off. Though not getting full-houses
(not many films showing in Australian cities do), those who come
are definitely aficionados.

Since the festival has been well publicized in teaching
institutions, apart from traditional cinema-goers looking for
something different, many students and teachers of Indonesian
studies have come from country towns in Victoria specially for
the events.

The seven participating cinemas are burgeoning with movie-
goers, Indonesian and Australian alike, who speak Indonesian with
various degrees of vernacular thrown in. There was a warm
ambience of community feeling inside the cinemas.

Ca Bau Kan, director Nia Dinata's debut, based on Remy
Sylado's novel of the same title was the opening film of the
festival on Tuesday at the Hoover Cinema in the heart of the
city. It was generally well-received, and the audience happily
expressed various sentiments and opinions about the film.

The period aspect of the film sat well with them, since
Melbourne film-lovers are used to historical films. However some
viewers commented that Ca Bau Kan came across more as a
television film than a cinema film, because more scenes were
filmed inside.

"It lacks the grandness of a cinema film," one of them said.

The cultural background of the story may also have interfered
with the general appreciation of the film. The main woman
character, according to some viewers, did not come out well as a
whole person. She was two-dimensional. The viewers did not get to
know her. We see here a problem of a story from a male point of
view, set in an era where women, especially kept women and
prostitutes, were not expected to be socially prominent.

The local Indonesian audience loved the film. They commented
on the attention to detail, and the older among them confessed to
feeling nostalgic.

On show, apart from full-length feature films, are also short
films made by Indonesian students living in Australia, and
various documentary films.

Australia has a long tradition of documentary film-making, so
this genre also attracts a substantial audience, especially
fellow cineasts and film-makers.

Two political documentary films shown on the second night,
Mass Grave, Digging up the Cruelties of Indonesian Barbarism and
The Army forces them to be Violent, were followed by a discussion
forum.

The two films were awareness-raising for those who knew very
little about Indonesia and thought-provoking for viewers who
already had some degrees of familiarity with the political
situation in Indonesia.

More interesting perhaps, was the background account of Tino
Saroengallo, the maker of The Army forces them to be Violent, a
film record of the mass protests in May 1998 when a number of
students from Trisakti University were shot dead, and an even
greater number were injured.

While making the documentary, Tino combined his animal
instincts and filmmaker's astuteness, and delivered an end-
product which was astounding in the extent of its coverage, hence
an incredible chronicle of the time.

Tino conceded that many of his critics complained of the fact
that he only followed one protest group. "I was alone, with no
significant funding in order to send cameramen around to cover
different groups. I wanted to make a film about the mass
protests. What should I do?" he recounted. So he followed one
group, Forkot. Looking back now, he knows he made the right
decision, because the scenes he was able to shoot and the
impromptu interviews he did were extremely revealing and
historically important.

Once he made the decision, he followed it through with
tenacity, though several times when the going was really tough
and along with the protesters he was in danger of being
physically harmed, or worse still, fatally wounded, he
momentarily wondered what he was doing there.

When he finally obtained funding to make the film into a 35 mm
format, he "let the film assume its own life". When shown in
cinemas in Indonesia, The Army forces them to be Violent failed
to interest the masses, yet the copies were snapped up by friends
and acquaintances, and Tino never worried about financial
compensation. These copies were then taken or sent to many
different countries, and even copied further.

Had he been more proprietorial and commercially minded about
the film, Tino might have lost it completely. A television
channel that claimed to have complete footage of the protests,
Tino told the audience, was raided and subsequently lost it all.
"At least I knew that even if I lost my master copy, there are
copies all over the world which the authorities will never be
able to eliminate altogether," he said.

The festival continues until Oct. 6, with 10 full-length
feature films, a number of short films, some student-produced
feature films, as well as documentary films, many with political
content.

At the end of the festival, there will be a discussion forum
at the University of Melbourne, titled Indonesian Film: A new
Wave in Contemporary Asian Culture, and an announcement of the
winners of the competition for student-produced films.

A heartening sign of the maturing of Indonesia is, despite the
fact that the political content of some of the documentary films
in the festival is unflattering to the authorities, the
Consulate General here extended its hospitality by organizing a
dinner party for the organizers and their entourage.