RI students go it alone to make movie

Prapti Widinugraheni, Contributor, Perth, Australia

A group of Indonesian students here have made their mark on the filmmaking scene, proving that good ideas and hard work are really what make a fine movie.

Pelangi di Atas Prahara (A Rainbow over Catastrophe), a 90- minute film in the teen-pop genre, had its premier here two weeks ago.

Featuring the love-hate relationship between two Indonesian students studying in Perth, Andara (Wannahari Harahap) and Arman (Panji Wiseso), the movie portrays Indonesian student life overseas: days and nights of computer gazing, mingling among fellow Indonesians and, ultimately, having the freedom that comes with living far from home.

Andara, mysterious and aloof, is new to the city while Arman, struggling to finish his studies, is interested only in photography.

For Andara, being in a foreign land allows her to escape a nightmarish past. For Arman, it is a chance to indulge in a hobby and ignore his father's wishes.

And for everyone else, it is simply an opportunity for non- stop exploration of the World Wide Web.

A course assignment pairs off Andara and Arman. Having to work regularly together, they eventually become friends, learn to "look deeper" and help each other come to terms with their personal trials and tribulations.

Although Pelangi is simple and has a somewhat predictable plot, the scenes are crisp, the actors convincing and the comedy witty. And it has all the ingredients essential to a good teen flick: trendy-looking young people speaking Jakarta slang, a good balance between soppy romance and comedy and a soundtrack fit for every teenage palate -- from romantic ballads to heavy metal, from pop music to jazzy tunes.

It also comes with English subtitles and a soundtrack CD.

In short, Pelangi has everything one would expect from a film made by professionals with plenty of experience. Except the makers are anything but professional and experienced.

The people involved in the making of the movie, from the director to the musicians, are all tertiary-level students based in Perth. They belong to a group called SUB Production whose activities -- until this movie was made -- seldom went beyond organizing sports tournaments and music events.

Director Putra Arradin, a long-time member of SUB Production, said the idea to make a movie came up one day out of the blue. The group's members simply wanted to do something different.

"At first people were unconvinced. Eventually, they warmed up to the idea; as we went along, more and more people started believing in it," he said.

"That," he added, "was eleven months ago."

The movie, it was decided, was to be a labor of love. Three teams compiled the script, friends and SUB Production members did homemade recordings of the soundtrack, Curtin University's School of Film and Television lent film equipment and various sponsors provided funding.

Twenty-five members of SUB Production were directly involved in the filming, only three of whom were undertaking courses related to filmmaking.

The movie's unit production manager, Yunita Nalapraya, said casting for the two lead roles proved difficult, although that was not the biggest issue.

"It was hard to get people who'd agree to stay in Perth during the (winter) holidays for the filming," she said.

Eventually they managed to assemble a fully committed team. Production started in mid-May and ended in September. Shooting was crammed into 40 days -- between July and early August -- with the crew working 18 hours a day.

"The difficultly was not in the technicalities or the shooting of the film -- that was merely exhausting. The hardest part was bringing things together and convincing people to trust and to stick to us despite the fact that none of us had ever made a movie," said Putra, who is doing his final semester for his master's in film and television at Curtin University of Technology.

"If I told someone to act a certain way and there were 15 people on the set, then there would immediately be 15 different opinions as to how it should be done another way. If we had allowed this to keep happening, there wouldn't have been a movie today."

The premier screening was held in one of Curtin University's lecture halls. The crew -- actors, technicians and producers -- were there to watch it along with friends and lecturers.

Asked when Pelangi would be screened back home, Putra said SUB Production had decided to wait and see.

He explained that the story -- revolving around a homemade sexually explicit video that falls into public hands and inevitably gets widely distributed -- was inspired by a real event that happened several years ago in Indonesia.

"This movie is siding with the victim. It challenges people to take a deeper look at things and to understand that different people have different circumstances and personal problems. I wanted the movie to be 'heavy' but not too heavy," Putra said.

A light, not too thought-provoking movie, would no doubt appeal to the Indonesian masses; in this sense, SUB Production has made a smart first step.

But, as Putra pointed out, the culturally sensitive topic of "porn" (and, perhaps, of not condemning it outright) might get Pelangi into serious trouble if it were to pass the sensors in Indonesia one day.

"We'll just wait and see the responses to our film. So far, we've had requests to screen the movie from Indonesian student communities in other Australian cities, as well as in New Zealand and America, so it's been positive. Rumors about the movie have also reached Jakarta and many of our friends are interested in it," he said.

He stressed that SUB Production would only be prepared to take the big leap to home turf after getting plenty of feedback -- and making the necessary changes for Pelangi to be socially acceptable in Indonesia.

Until then, Indonesian viewers will miss out on a great independent movie with undisputed mass appeal.