The festival’s agenda includes a meet and greet with filmmakers from the movie Dilema. (JP/Dina Indrasafitri)

The 7th Indonesian Film Festival in Melbourne, Australia, aimed to present the cream of the crop of Indonesia’s film industry.

However, while it is possible to choose outstanding movies out of choices such as absurd horror films as well as those that exploited sex appeal and little else, it was quite an impossible task to provide Australia with a glimpse into the state of Indonesia’s film industry without its dark clouds.

When three Indonesian directors and one actor spoke last Wednesday, at a seminar held as part of the festival’s agenda, wishes and lamentations about the movie industry back home immediately came gushing out — if only there were more cinemas in the country’s non-metropolitan regions, if only the directors and producers had more money to spend and so on.

It also doesn’t help that cinema audience numbers have declined over the last few years.

The website filmindonesia.or.id, run by film critics JB Kristanto and Lisabona Rahman along with Yayasan Konfiden, states that in 2008 even though the movie Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow Troop) recorded over four million viewers, blockbuster audience numbers have been declining ever since.

In 2011, the website cited that only around 740,000 went to watch the top blockbuster Surat Kecil Untuk Tuhan (Small Letter to God).

Adilla Dimitri, who is one of the directors of the movie Dilema, attributed the decline of viewers to a lack of confidence in local movies.

“Some producers just invest in movie titles or posters and they make movies that are really bad. This makes people reluctant to go to the movies [to watch Indonesian films],” he said.

However, there was a rose-tint through the festival’s window to the film industry of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

The movies themselves, for one, might reignite confidence towards Indonesia’s big screen offerings.

From Oct. 11 to 13, the RMIT Capitol Theater is scheduled to screen Dilema, Lovely Man, Mama Cake, Perahu Kertas (Paper Boat) and For Ucok. Screenings of Brandal-Brandal Ciliwung (Ciliwung Gangsters) are also being held for three days during the same week for students learning Indonesian.

The movies offer various, and often unique, plots except perhaps, for Brandal-Brandal Ciliwung, which champions the oft-repeated plot of a tomboy girl entering an all-boys gang, even this particular movie offers much in its beautiful cinematography and the sweeping shots of riverside slums.

Lovely Man tells the story of a pious Muslim girl’s encounter with her long-lost father, who now works as a transvestite prostitute. Perahu Kertas, on the other hand, is based on a best-selling novel by Dewi Lestari and, even before its release, is the subject of much “buzz” among moviegoers in Indonesia.

The seminar heard that even though Indonesia’s movie audiences may be declining, the country can also boast more and more aspiring filmmakers who are passionate about injecting new ideas into the scene.

Another thing to celebrate is the global recognition that some Indonesian movies are gaining. Dilema, which involves five plots including ones about illegal gambling and religious extremism, won Best Feature Film at the Detective FEST 2012 in Russia while Lovely Man bagged the Best Actor Title in the Asian Film Awards 2012.

Not to mention, of course, the heart-stopping, action-packed The Raid, this won the hearts of many critics worldwide.

Melbourne’s Indonesian Film Festival may still be a far cry from the likes of the glitzy Toronto International Film Festival or Cannes Film festival, being featured at the event is still an achievement, Dilema’s co-director Robby Ertanto said.

“It is a good chance to show our works to Australians and to be in the line-up itself, of course, is an achievement because it involves a selection process,” said Robby, who also spoke at the festival’s seminar.

Dozens of Australian students watched Brandal-Brandal Ciliwung, thanks to cooperation with the Melbourne University’s Asia Institute and the Victorian Indonesian Language Teachers’ Association.

While only about a dozen attended the festival’s workshop and seminar, the two events proved to be lively ones, with non-stop question and answer sessions about Indonesia’s filmmaking scene as well as technicalities surrounding the making of Dilema.

Christy, who is currently studying filmmaking in Deakin University, Australia, asked about the cinematography techniques employed in Dilema, which in total involved five directors.

The festival’s filmmaking workshop provided Christy with insight into the moviemaking process in Indonesia.
“I am planning to do an internship in a production house in Indonesia,” she said.

The meet-and-greet with Dilema’s directors and actor, the previous night in a restaurant in Melbourne’s CBD, proved to be another lively event attended by aspiring practitioners.

Lusi, who is a student of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts, seized the chance that night to ask actress and producer Wulan Guritno about the latter’s experience in studying in an acting academy.

Lusi herself has big dreams, with Hollywood being one of them, but she added that she would also like to have experiences in the Indonesian film industry.

The Indonesian Film Festival was initiated by Ronald Wicaksana and Zendi Chandra in 2006.

Kemal Caesar Sutomo, this years’ vice project manager for the festival, said that the event aimed to increase cultural understanding and exchange between Indonesia and Australia.

While Indonesians living in Melbourne would be obvious targets for the event, he said that Australians interested in Indonesian culture and movie enthusiasts in general were also present in the festivals in the previous years.

According to Kemal, Catatan (Harian) Si Boy (The Boy’s Daily Notes) had been a big success at the festival last year.

“The enthusiasm was so great that it had to be screened twice,” he said.

This year’s highlight is likely to be Perahu Kertas, Kemal added.

Kemal said the movies selected for screening at the festival have to fulfil a certain criteria, such as being released during the past year as well as existing recognition such as or awards.

According to Kemal, many Australians he knew were unfamiliar with Indonesian movies. “They know Indonesia, but not its movies, except for The Raid perhaps,” he said.

Ralf Dudat, who worked with this year’s Indonesian Film Festival’s media committee, said that he has been involved with the event since 2007 and it gave him a chance to see other sides of Indonesia, which are not present in mainstream media in Australia.

“The [Australian] media doesn’t show a great deal of [Indonesian] diversity,” he said.

Dudat said that he now has “quite a collection of Indonesian DVDs” and tries to spread the word about those movies to his friends.

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