Indonesian film feted at Rotterdam FilmFest
Paolo Bertolin, Contributor, Rotterdam
The resurgence in Indonesian filmmaking was feted recently at yet another key international film event.
After a special program last fall titled Garin and the Next Generation: New Possibilities in Indonesian Cinema at the Pusan International Film Festival, the leading film festival in Asia, Indonesian films were heavily featured at the 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), which was held on Jan. 26 through Feb. 6.
One of the largest film festivals in the world, with its 24 screening venues fully operating for 12 days, 800 films screened, dozens of performances, exhibitions, talk shows and lectures, and an estimated audience of more than 350,000, IFFR is by no means the most important cultural event of the Netherlands.
Always attentive to new trends in worldwide filmmaking, the adventurous programming committee, led by festival director Sandra den Hamer, has chosen this year to devote a wide-ranging special program to Southeast Asian cinema, called SEA Eyes.
Curator Gertjan Zuilhof thoughtfully sought films from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, inviting the cream of the crop to Rotterdam from those countries.
Eventually, no less than three feature films and 14 short films were selected from Indonesia. These included the international premiere of Rindu Kami Padamu (Of Love and Eggs), the latest from Indonesia most prominent author, Garin Nugroho, a regular to Rotterdam, where his Daun di atas Bantal (Leaf on a Pillow) played as curtain-raiser in 1999.
Nugroho's new film, whose original title comes from a popular song based on a poem by Taufiq Ismail, recreates the cinematic world of Indonesian studio-made films to tell a feel-good children's story set in a Muslim neighborhood.
Nugroho sees his film as a "religious film", with the qualification, "making a religious film does not mean making propaganda, preaching to people what to think and what to do; religiosity is not propaganda but practice in everyday life".
Thus, Nugroho hopes that Of Love and Eggs will play "a part in the dialog between religions and the discussion inside Muslim religion in Indonesia", pointing out how "recently, a black and white perspective on Islam has reduced it to a bipolar view of radicalism and liberalism; meanwhile, there are so many facets to Muslim religion".
Focusing on how "religious propaganda heavily relies on discourse on love and faith, but only inside mosques, churches and temples, while in reality it only spreads violence outside", Nugroho modestly adds, "My film is an attempt to show that religion must have love in everyday life, not only in the mosque, the church or the temple."
As a coherent effort to his laudable commitment, Nugroho was in Rotterdam also to attend the CinemArt, the prestigious market of art-film coproduction, in order to raise funding for a collective project he is now involved in Five Worlds, a five- segment omnibus film to be directed by five filmmakers from different Muslim countries.
The project, which will comprise contributions from U-Wei bin Hajisaari (Malaysia), Sobhi al-Zobaidi (Palestine), Kamal Tabrizi (Iran) and Homayoun Paiz (Afghanistan), is intended to let "every director interpret the social and political reality of his country".
It aims "to give different perspectives on Islam", in response to the fact that Islam is "recently often reduced by international media to just a one-dimensional perspective, while Muslim religion provides wide, multicultural perspectives in different sociopolitical contexts", Nugroho stated.
The other two features included in the program were Rudi Soedjarwo's Mengejar Matahari (Chasing the Sun) and Ravi L. Bharwani's Impian Kemarau (The Rainmaker).
Soedjarwo's film, a mainstream production relating the misadventures of four friends in a contemporary Jakarta housing complex, met with warm applause from the audience, while Bharwani's suggestive art-film seduced most European critics with its slow, deliberate tempo, its stylish and sensuous visual conception and its intriguing use of a Javanese cultural backdrop.
The wide-ranging choice of short films mainly aligned in two distinctive, yet very often overlapping streams: on one side, those envisaging or commenting on politically or socially relevant issues, such as Hardline by Andibachtiar Yusuf, Fear Factor Election 2004 (Star Galaxy) by Dosy Omar, Ronin and Andy Asks by Forum Lenteng, Error Terror Public Horror by Rizki Lazuardi or Nugroho's Trilogi Politik.
On the other side, those sensitively experimenting the film medium, such as Please Come to My Dream, I Want to Hurt You by Dimas Jayasrana, Everything's OK by Tintin Wulia, A Mail by Aryo Danusiri and Dajang Soembi, The Woman Who Is Married to a Dog by Edwin, Broken by Salman Aristo, Silenced by Ariani Darmawan, or Crooswijk and My Right Wing by Lulu Ratna.
Freelance film event organizer Ratna also sat on the jury of the Amnesty International-DOEN Award, a prize distinguishing films highlighting human rights and human dignity presented to Iran Hassan Yektapanah's Story Undone.
Moreover, Indonesia was not only the subject of filmmaking in Rotterdam, but the object as well, as displayed in some international documentaries.
The most prominent was The Year of Living Vicariously by Malaysian Amir Muhammad, which combines the making of Riri Riza's new ambitious film and a political report on last year's elections.