Indonesian short films break into int'l scene

Indonesian short films break into int'l scene

Zora Rahman, Contributor, Hamburg, Germany

Students are running the streets shouting "reformasi sampai mati"
(reformation until death). Cut. People are watching the
exhumation of a mass grave where victims of the 1966 massacres
were buried. Cut. A young man is wandering around Jakarta finding
himself in the middle of hopelessness facing the huge contrasts
in the chaotic metropolis.

Scenes out of Indonesian short films screened at the 19th
International Short Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany this month.
For most of the spectators these pictures represent a totally
strange world, including all its political, cultural and social
problems. There are not many screenings there that could reduce
this lack of knowledge.

Indonesian films are almost unknown in Germany, especially if
not directed by Garin Nugroho. To find it at all, interested
people have to wait for special screenings at Southeast Asian
institutes of some universities or events organized by Indonesian
communities. And then the public still will mainly consist of
Indonesian students, exiles or Germans who have some connection
to Indonesia -- be it in a professional or private way.

So it was an exceptional occasion that the International Short
Film Festival of Hamburg this year focused on Japan and Indonesia
in the foreign program.

To confirm this focus, the festival organizers invited Lulu
Ratna, former programmer of the Jakarta International Film
Festival and founder of KONFIDEN (Community of Independent
Films), to become a member of the jury for the no-budget
competition. She was accompanied by two of the participating
filmmakers - Maria Clementine "Tintin" Wulia from Bali and Dimas
Jayasrana from Purwokerto, Java.

Together with Alexandra Gramatke from "thede", a German
documentary filmmaker collective, and last year's award winner
Borjan Zafirowski from Macedonia, the Indonesian film expert had
to decide on the best no-budget work out of 51 films that made it
into the final selection.

"The most interesting aspect of this festival is, that it
succeeds in showing such a variety from different parts of the
world: With around 500 guests from other film festivals and the
connected distribution network by the Hamburg Short Film Agency,
this is a very precious chance for us," Lulu said, who just
started to build up a new distribution for Indonesian short
films.

"Short films are everywhere in the world, are rather marginal
but have the charm of amateur features. But in Indonesia, they
are still an underground phenomenon - so we need all kinds of
support."

When the Indonesian team arrived for the opening of the Film
Festival in Hamburg, the sun was shining brightly, -- a rare
fact, since the city in Northern Germany is famous for its cold,
rainy weather, and quite a contrast for the audience to watch the
"exotic" films, that could be described as anything but bright
and shiny, such as the quite shocking documentary Mass Grave by
Lexy Junior Rambadeta or the short feature film Air Mata Surga
(Heaven's Tears) by Eddie Cahyono and Ifa Isfansyah.

But although half of Hamburg's population was hanging out at
the riverside, other people still waited in long lines to enter
the main program at the repertory cinemas. Some of the
International contest film blocks even had been sold out. A fact
proving that the Short Film Festival of Hamburg is already
accepted as an institution offering a platform to hundreds of
filmmakers from all over the world, that never would have the
chance to get an international audience without the festival's
recommendation.

While the mainly professional International and German
national competition at the festival competed with famous names
and high-tech material, the no-budget competition still has a lot
of surprises - in both, a positive and negative, sense. Since
Indonesia does not yet have a market for short films at all and
consequently almost no money for high-tech film material or
extended education for filmmakers, it would be hard to compete
with films of nearly Hollywood standard from some Western film
makers.

"Some of the Indonesian film makers really have great
potential, but because of their standards they can only have a
fair competition within the no-budget level," said Astrid Kuehl,
manager of the Hamburg Short Film Agency that has initiated and
organized the festival since 1985, in its beginnings still under
the name No-Budget Film Festival.

The cooperation between Hamburg and Indonesia started earlier
this year, when Astrid Kuehl and her colleague Frank Scheuffele
were invited by the Goethe-Institute in Jakarta to present the
"German-Indonesian Award Winner" short film program that was
supervised by Lulu Ratna.

As a result of this ambitious tour around five cities on Java
and Bali, the persons involved decided to continue this exchange
of experiences at the Hamburg Short Film Festival.

"This decision was probably taken quite spontaneously, but now
the impressions are still fresh," Frank Scheuffele said, who
admitted that he "did not have any idea about Indonesia" before
the tour.

"We had to learn about the cultural understanding that really
makes a huge difference in the perception of films", Astrid Kuehl
explained.

"Most of the subjects are very political and for our European
taste often too pathetic. As a result of the financial issues
among Indonesian filmmakers they often try to put too many themes
in one short film and finally fail by overload. More
international experience could help them with that."

One who knows how to use a small focus and minimal methods in
a very sophisticated way is Tintin Wulia. Her experimental short
film Ketok (Knocking) creatively uses simple media, for example
shadows of hands in front of the crayon drawing on a blackboard
to illustrate the story told by her parents voices who once
experienced a night of fear in a newly built house because of a
mysterious knocking on the door.

Therefore, it was not surprising that Ketok was especially
commended at the no-budget award that was won by the Canadian
Benny N. Ramsay with his film Live to Tell (Madonna's song
performed in an empty office building and recorded by dozens of
surveillance cameras).

Even if the German spectators did not understand every joke or
problem in the Indonesian films, they seemed to be open to learn
more, especially in the direct comparison with the Japanese film
programs that focused almost entirely on different kinds of
psychological problems.

"Indonesian filmmakers still have a lot of catching up to do
concerning their education and technology," Astrid Kuehl said,
"but I am sure that we will see them a lot more at International
Film Festivals in the coming years. We will try to do our best to
support this development".