Postcards from the Zoo's producer Meiske Taurisia (left) and director Teddy Soeriaatmadja. (JP/Nurhayati)

Talented director/screenwriter Teddy Soeriaatmadja enjoyed a great night on Monday, snatching two Jati Emas awards for his award-winning masterpiece from 2012, Lovely Man.

Held by the Akademi Film Indonesia (Indonesian Film Academy), the inaugural award event honored Teddy as best screenwriter and best director. The accolades for the gender-themed drama came as no surprise; it also reaped an Asian Film Award and the government-sponsored Citra award last year for lead actor Donny Damara. At both prestigious events, Teddy was also nominated as best director.

A social commentary on the lives of minorities in a predominantly Muslim country, the story elaborates on the emotional upheavals following the first encounter of a transgender woman, Ipul (Donny), with his pregnant teenage daughter, Cahaya (Raihaanun Soeriaatmadja). In its official statement, the jury said that Lovely Man was a piece of art that 'represents a meditation on an intimate experience on difference ' something that has become the root in our daily life in terms of race, religion and ideology'.

The academy also said that Teddy successfully displayed maturity in storytelling and had produced an impressive creation, capturing small things that seem unimportant but are truly significant.

Compared to other movies produced last year, Lovely Man had only a modest budget, with Teddy writing and directing the movie casting his wife, Raihanuun, as star.

'Lovely Man is a small film. I'm really grateful to receive the awards,' said Teddy in his acceptance speech.

The best movie went to Edwin's Postcards from the Zoo, a poetic picture of a young woman growing up in a zoo and trying to connect with the urban atmosphere of Jakarta. The jury said that the movie carried aesthetic elements that enriched Indonesian cinema. Edwin won the Asia Film Awards' Edward Yang Award for New Talent last year.

 'I'm glad about the initiative from the Academy Film Indonesia. This event appreciates film as an art, which stands side by side with a film as a commercial commodity,' said Postcards' producer Meiske Taurisia.

Comprising two established film communities ' Film Indonesia and Konfiden ' that have been keeping records on Indonesian movies, the awards also saw the announcement of Habibie & Ainun (Habibie and Ainun) as the highest-grossing film, with a total of 4.3 million viewers after 13 weeks of screening in cinemas. More box office figures are available at Film Indonesia's website, filmindonesia.or.id.

Several other films were also singled out: Atambua 39C (Atambua 39 degrees Celcius), Cinta tapi Beda (Love but Different), Jakarta Hati (Hearts of Jakarta), Mata Tertutup (The Blindfold), Rayya, Cahaya di Atas Cahaya (Rayya, Light upon Light), Soegija and Time magazine favorite The Raid.

There were a total of 85 movies released in 2012.

Through the awards, the academy offers appreciation of Indonesian films from an artistic point of view. The awards are an alternative to the government-sponsored and established Festival Film Indonesia (FFI), which has had its detractors and supporters among filmmakers. The FFI requires movies to pass censorship, to have local directors and to officially register to the selection committee. FFI only reviewed 47 movies last year.

The academy's jury consisted of 20 people in the industry including film critic J.B. Kristanto, directors Riri Riza and Ifa Isfansyah and Paul Agusta, producer Mira Lesmana, film editor Andhy Pulung, cinematographer Faozan Rizal, as well as veteran actor Didi Petet.

'The idea of forming the film academy came out of our concern that Indonesian films have started to grow into a major industry,' said one academy member, film critic Totot Indarto, during the awards ceremony in Jakarta recently.

Meanwhile, the academy believes that Indonesian films must be grounded in both art and industry. The two parts, Totot said, must stand equally side by side, as the fathers of Indonesian films, great filmmaker Usmar Ismail and entrepreneur Jalaludin Malik, realized.

'The academy wishes to embrace the artistic side of Indonesian films so they will develop into a good tradition which benefits the people,' added Totot.

The academy underwent used quantitative and qualitative procedures to select the winners. First, all 85 movies were selected based on their reviews on filmindonesia.or.id. Films that received seven out of 10 stars were automatically categorized as top movies. Second, films were singled out based on the individual choices of each academy member, who were allowed to list their personal choices as long as they were not involved in the production of the films.

Nevertheless, Riri Riza said that the academy applied direct voting on films selected through the qualitative process for the inaugural awards ceremony.

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