Nauval Yazid, Contributor, Jakarta
A couple spends their longest time together in an elevator trying to communicate with one another each year during their wedding anniversary.
A kid chooses to be a vampire to save her sister. A daughter is confused by her parent's wish that she commit suicide.
The funeral processions we organize tell the world everything it needs to know about our wealth and social class.
The above are not found in sleazy tabloids sold on the street, but are the basic premise of four scripts that won the JiFFest Script Development Competition last year.
After the winners were declared their scripts still had to go through further development for around a year before they went to be filmed in September this year.
Finally, they will be shown for the first time to the public at JiFFest.
They are The Anniversaries (directed by Ariani Darmawan, written by Ariani, Tumpal Tampubolon and Budi Warsito), The Last Believer (directed and written by Tumpal Tampubolon), Positive+ (directed by Astu Prasidya and Utawa Tresno, written by Astu and Hilda Candra) and Death in Jakarta (directed and written by Ucu Agustin).
Despite getting an initial boost to develop their scripts only last year, the ideas had been around long before that.
For Tumpal it went as far back as childhood memories, for The Last Believer was based on his experience watching classic horror movies as a kid. The influence is reflected in his film in the naming of two main characters after his favorite actors, i.e. Bella (from Bela Lugosi, the legendary actor who often played Dracula), and Karla (from Boris Karloff, known for his portrayal of Frankenstein).
Other writers take slightly more serious social issues, like Ariani who based her The Anniversaries on her friends who are unknowingly trapped in loveless marriages.
She said, ""Some of my friends choose to get married for the sake of financial security. From that idea, I couldn't help wondering what it's like to be caged in a marriage where you feel forced simply to talk to one another, because no emotional bond is there.""
On another note, Positive+ takes a fresh look at unplanned pregnancy among teenagers. The film shows the victim, a teenager, suffering not from her pregnancy, but from her parents' lack of sympathy for her.
The most serious of the four is Ucu Agustin's Death in Jakarta, which examines how wealth matters most when it comes to death. She said, ""When I started working as a freelance writer, I often passed a public cemetery in Utan Kayu (East Jakarta).
""I began to see the differences in the rituals for burying dead bodies. I was amazed. But I was even more surprised to find out that different graveyard spaces in the same cemetery charge differently.
""It sounds strange. Apparently, we still carry and count our money though we have already left the world"".
For Ucu, the strangeness did not stop there. She added, ""We had to submit our proposal to Cipto Mangunkusumo public hospital and the public funeral service of DKI Jakarta twice, because they claimed they had lost the original.""
Fortunately, obstacles like these somehow only occurred during the preproduction process, as they did for the other three films. Astu was lucky enough to secure A-list Indonesian stars, Bucek Depp and Unique Priscilla, to act in his debut film.
Ariani was surrounded by people from IKJ (Jakarta's arts institute) who served as her crew and acted as extras in the film.
Ucu admitted that it was the first time she had used a professional camera to shoot her film.
The loan of a camera was among the prizes awarded to the winners, apart from the prize money of Rp 25 million to produce each film.
A limited budget, of course, but for filming that lasted five days on average, and with films that did not run for more than 10 minutes (apart from Death at 28 minutes), the funding and camera were sufficient.
Ariani said, ""Every aspiring screenwriter wants to have their projects funded, so I'm thankful for the opportunity. Especially when making shorts in Indonesia, the opportunity to get them funded and sponsored is pretty rare.""
Asked if there is actually a future for short films in Indonesia, Ariani added with a great optimism, ""We've seen the rise of short film showcases recently, with the Slingshort festival and many others. I believe that the rise will not stop here. It will grow more"".
Her assurance, and her work here, along with that of her peers, somehow convince us that there will be much to look forward to at future JiFFests.
(The short-film premieres were held Dec. 10, to an invited audience. Free public screenings of the films, accompanied by other foreign shorts, are scheduled for Dec. 14 and 16 at EX Studio 4. For synopses visit www.jiffest.org)
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|