From his journal, he wrote the script based on his own experience with bipolar disorder. The result was a tale of a young woman's grueling struggle with the fluctuations of extreme euphoria and deep depression.

The film's raw scenes are filled with confronting visuals, such as a thin, wounded man devoured by human rats and a woman freeing herself from being chained to a cross. Using experimental techniques, such as camera handling that goes in and out of focus and stop motions, Paul said he attempted to depict the visuals of his nightmares.

After being screened at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, Paul's second feature-length film finally premiered last Friday at Kineforum, Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ).

Paul said he was more nervous about having the film screened in his home country than abroad.

"Honestly, I was scared half to death. I'm more nervous than I was when the film was screened in Rotterdam. There, I will never see 95 percent of the people again in my life. Here, there are other filmmakers that I will see over and over again," he said.

The film did attract different reactions from the audience. In the discussion with the film crew afterwards, amid several comments praising the film, a 22-year-old man, who professed that he also suffered from depression, said that he was worried that some people with depression might be fixated on the darkest and most depressing scenes of the film.

"I've had problems with depression, although maybe not as extreme. Some people might just want to choose the scenes according to what they feel and I'm worried that might trigger something," he said.

Paul responded by saying that as a filmmaker, he could not control the reaction of the audience and did not think the director and actors were responsible for that.

The film, divided into 10 chapters, depicts the stages of Paul illness. "In great detail, as much as possible," he said.

The film's first scenes start with actress and musician Kartika Jahja, popularly called Tika, narrating her story.

"What do you get at the very bottom of everything?" asked her character after continuing to explain there was a sense of comfort at the bottom, a finality that one would no longer fall.

At this point, the choice to remain or start climbing is made.

One of the audience members asked why the film sometimes felt like it dragged on.

Tika said that was because that is exactly what a low episode of depression felt like.

"It is dragging. You want it to end because it's tiring when you're in one of your down or manic episodes. You just want everything to end quickly. And sometimes the body can't even resist even though you've taken medication," she said.

Kartika, who herself suffers from the same illness, co-wrote the script with Paul Poet Leon Agusta, Paul's father, also contributed to the writing. Kartika, translated Paul's English-draft and modeled the script into a more realistic and less self-indulgent script, Paul said.

"The easy part was, as basic creative writing teaches, write what you know. And boy did I know about this. The hard part was to convey it so people without making them feel pity. I don't want people to pity people with the illness," he said.

Both Paul and Tika said the film was aimed at helping people understand more about bipolar disorder. Many people who suffer from bipolar disorder might not realize that they suffer from it, Tika said.

"In Indonesia, because mental health is not really taken seriously, a lot of the cases end up tragically," she said.

Basic healthcare research conducted by the Indonesian Health Ministry in 2007 revealed that 11.6 percent of adults in Indonesia suffered from some form of mental or emotional disorder, such as depression and anxiety. A 2002 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that neuropsychiatric disorders and self-inflicted injuries were the leading cause of a decrease in quality of life in Indonesia.

The film is slated to be screened at Salihara art center on April 9.

Tika said that when Paul asked her to play the part of the narrator, she was scared.

"I had to revisit the darkest moments of my life," she said. The two-day shoot of her part, she said was physically and emotionally draining.

For his next project, Paul said he would be collaborating with Tika again, this time with her as co-director. In the new project, Moonlight and the Company You Keep, Paul will leave his experimental leanings and work to a conventional drama.

"My itch for experimenting has gone. This one will be a simple story about six friends in a five day period," he said.

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