F

ilmmaker Joko Anwar has gone beyond the mainstream — launching his short film, Durable Love, online.

The 12-minute teen flick, which is set to hit the Internet on Valentine’s Day, centers on a female character, who was happy with her single status until she falls for a workaholic geek, turning her into a nagging lover as the love journey begins.

“This film is not about meeting the right person but on how to keep the relationship going. It sounds very light, but when you look deeper, you will see that in real life, keeping relationships is very difficult and many fail,” Joko said on Saturday.

Shot in several locations in Jakarta, the film had no script and relied on existing set property, so it needed only a very small budget, he said.

The film, shot in January, features Karina Salim, who played in the musical Onrop, and Sadha Triyuda, an actor in Joko’s upcoming movie Modus Anomali.

Durable Love is one of Joko’s four short films about love and relationships that he has made since 2007. The other three films include The Most Beautiful Thing Tonight and The Park.

The talented director of Janji Joni (Joni’s Promise, 2005), Kala (2007) and Pintu Terlarang (The Forbidden Door, 2009) said he didn’t use scripts, wanting the film to be honest while offering actors freedom from memorizing lines.

“I want to share with young filmmakers that the most important thing in a film is the story,” said the 35-year-old, who plans to make a feature film titled A Copy of My Mind, which will also be unscripted.

When asked why he chose the love theme, he smiled and showed the tattoo of three words — punch, drunk, love — on his left arm.

“Many people don’t know that I am a hopeless romantic.”

— Indah Setiawati