TV drama on scavengers launched
JAKARTA (JP): Noted director Teguh Karya launched the start of his new production Alang-alang (weeds), a TV drama "on a little girl who wants a better future."
"We will shoot the first take this evening," Teguh said yesterday at his Central Jakarta workshop.
Focusing on a family of Jakarta scavengers, the "documentary drama," is broken up into three segments, each 42 minutes long. The show is a cooperative project with the National Family Planning Board (BKKBN), the private-owned Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI) and the film division of PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, the latter two owned by Hardiyanti Siti Rukmana.
Both Teguh and BKKBN chairman/Minister of Population Haryono Suyono ensured the production would not appear to be propaganda on family planning or the development of the prosperous family; two issues recently discussed by President Soeharto for the second part of the national family planning program.
"We want to share values without adding new slogans, as there are too many of them out there already," Teguh said.
"Hopefully, people will understand what it takes to make a strong family. We're not going to tell them that we want them to use condoms, or accept Alang-alang as a pure, high form of art," said Haryono. "I have no right to dictate to Teguh."
Teguh said one of the sources of the drama's story was "an unexpected interview with scavengers" and a recent investigation conducted for the production by the American Frank Little Associates.
Teguh said that the findings, both informal and from the research, detail the resilience of scavenger families, the embarrassment of fathers who hide their job from their children who are left behind in their villages and the attitudes of scavengers' children who are mocked in school because of their parents' profession.
Cost
Teguh said one of the goals of the "low-cost" Rp 190 million (US$87,963) drama is that its 20-minute trailer would be brought to the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, scheduled for September.
The main characters of Alang-alang include ten-year-old Dea Yunita Tiarakusuma as "Syarifah," a scavenger's daughter, Dimas as Romli, her younger brother and veteran artists Rima Melati and Rachmat Hidayat as a rich couple.
Dea has played in a few earlier TV dramas, most recently, the character Ningrum in Si Putih. The fifth grader of Bekasi, East Jakarta said she doesn't mind the mucking around in garbage that her role requires.
"It is good experience," she said, adding that her studies would not be affected. "I still ranked third in my class (this semester)," she said with a smile.
Although Teguh claimed he was doing "something different" from the other current TV dramas, known here as sinetron, he would not give any specific comments about other mini-series.
"I will only say that 10 out of every 15 productions are not good." (anr)