Filmmaker and former Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) director Orlow Seunke said that it pained him to see the festival declining upon entering its 10th year.

This year the organizers of JiFFest, one of the biggest film festivals in Southeast Asia, halved the number of screening days due to funding problems. Cutting back the festival to 5 days from its usual 10 makes it the shortest schedule in the festival's history.

"So what do I think? It's painful," Seunke said.

Heading the festival from 2004 to 2006, Seunke took the event to new heights with Rp 5 billion in sponsorship and 63,000 admissions. Last year, admissions dropped to 54,000.

The Dutch producer, director and writer sat in a South Jakartan caf* Friday with a double espresso and told The Jakarta Post that he resigned as director of the festival over differences in opinion

"I wanted to make it big. I wanted to finance the festival properly, which I found out was very difficult," he said.

"I wanted to change the way we financed the event, and basically the board and everybody had different opinions so I left. And I do hope they are going to build it up next year again," he said.

Not an unfamiliar face to the Indonesian film industry, Seunke has contributed to the industry in a behind-the-screen manner. He taught numerous students at the Jakarta Arts Institute between 1987 and 1990.

The 56-year-old is a graduate of the Dutch Film School. He said that he was a very demanding person, both to himself and to the people he worked with.

He graduated from the film school with academic distinction, and started writing, directing and producing immediately.

In 1982 he won awards for The Taste of Water and in 1985 for Pervola.

He closely worked with Indonesia's promising filmmakers Nan T. Achnas, Rayya Makarim, Prima Rusdi and Ravi Bharwani in a six-month master class workshop on script-writing here.

Both Nan and Rayya worked on the acclaimed film Pasir Berbisik (Whispering Sands) (2001). Prima co-wrote the screenplay for Eliana Eliana (2002) with Riri Riza and the commercially successful film Ada Apa dengan Cinta? (What's Up with Love?) (2001) catapulted actors Dian Sastrowardoyo and Nicholas Saputra into teenage heartthrobs. Meanwhile Ravi directed the award-winning Impian Kemarau (the Rainmaker).

"I would say that I am a very demanding teacher," he said.

After reading a promising script by Ravi during the course he recruited Ravi as director and Rayya as the scriptwriter to produce a feature film titled Jermal, scheduled to be commercially released in March next year.

The film has been screened in Pusan, South Korea and is scheduled to be screened in the Rotterdam film festival.

A neorealist movie about a father and son, the film is set on an offshore fishing rig, locally known in North Sumatra as "jermal". The entire 90 minutes of the film was shot in the middle of the sea. Didi Petet acted as the father while Iqbal S Manurung as the son.

In the film, those playing the children are local Medan kids. Some of the children cast had been working in the Jermal themselves, while others near the beach in Medan.

"So you can see that they are from that social class. They are absolutely fantastic," Seunke said about the children.

He said the film for him has always been a reflection of the society we live in, and so worked well for Jermal.

Seunke said he has been fascinated with Indonesia ever since he was a boy, particularly because many Indo-Dutch immigrants from Indonesia moved to the Netherlands between 1945 and 1952. Indo-Dutch is the biggest minority group in the Netherlands, consisting of around 600,000 people.

He first visited Indonesia thirty years ago at the age of 26 and has come back dozens of times ever since.

In 2002, he decided to move to Indonesia, shortly after right-wing lawmaker Pim Fortuyn was shot dead by gunmen.

"I did not like the atmosphere in Holland anymore," he said. Not long after he left, his colleague Theo Van Gogh was killed by a Muslim fundamentalist.

"I did not like the political situation, and also the Dutch film fund had become increasingly commercially focused. I like commercial films a lot but think there also be some quality," he said.

He sold his house and moved to Indonesia, even considering retiring from his directing career.

It has been almost ten years since he last directed a movie. He has not directed a movie since his latest film Kaas (Cheese) (1999) was released. However, the prospect of quitting the business has proved impossible. Already he has plans to direct a film again next year based on a script developed by his students, Prima and Rayya.

"I plan to make one each year," he said. "I can not help it. I have to do it."

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