Usmar Ismail screens films by teenagers

JAKARTA (JP): What happens when you get 44 eager teenagers armed with a video camera?

They will make films, of course. Some kids did even better. They participated in the three-week film workshop held at the Usmar Ismail Film Center begun on Aug. 1. Now they have come up with nine short films they can proudly say are their own. These 10-minute films are to be shown publicly at the Film Center this Sunday, Aug. 22, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The kids, with ages ranging from 13 to 18, come from various high schools in Jakarta and the vicinity: SMU Santa Ursula, SMU Pangudi Luhur, SMU 1 Bogor, SMU 46, SMU 34, SMU 8, SMU Gonzaga, SMU 81, SMU 68 and Labschool.

They have been coming to the Film Center every Sunday for the past three weeks to be part of the film workshop with the theme "Our World", organized by The Indonesia PopCorner Foundation, which is concerned with the development and empowerment of Indonesian adolescents and is using pop culture as a means to approach them.

Each Sunday, the kids meet with young, professional filmmakers such as Riri Riza, Sentot Sahid and Ainun Rido. They are trained in all aspects of film making and at the end of the day are given assignments with experienced mentors standing by them.

The teenagers went through the whole procedure of screenwriting, storyboard making, shooting and editing before finishing the short films that will be screened on Sunday. They used the film medium to tell stories of the adolescent world, a world they should understand better than the grownups who have made films and television series about teenagers.