T

he 2014 Denpasar Film Festival (DFF) organizing committee aims to boost the creativity and work quality of documentary filmmakers through a variety of programs, including monthly film screenings and reviews.

The festival is an annual documentary competition held to increase people'€™s appreciation of documentaries, especially in Denpasar. It includes several programs, such as filmmaking training, film reviews and competitions.

This is the fifth year for the festival and Maria Ekaristi, event committee secretary, said Thursday that participation had increased from year to year, with entries from all over the country.

In DFF 2014, Maria said the team was preparing a concept that could work as a stimulus for documentary filmmakers to be more creative and produce higher quality work, as well as providing an interactive space with film lovers.

Collaborating with Antida Sound Garden, which has conducted various arts events, the festival committee will screen and review movies each mid-month throughout the year.

Involved in the program is the Filmmakers and Film Lovers Group (KPPF), consisting of Bali youths, which was awarded third best film forum in 2013 by the Education and Culture Ministry.

'€œThe event is open to the public and has free entrance. The location [Antida] is also very accessible,'€ Maria said. '€œWe want to see a reciprocal advantage between filmmakers and lovers, and trigger citizens to produce their own work.'€

The 2014 DFF will kick off on Saturday at 8 p.m. with the screening of an award-winning movie from last year'€™s festival, The Man Comes Around by Adih Saputra. The film is about an artist from Yogyakarta who criticized his surrounding conditions through murals.

Besides showing the artist'€™s quality of work, it also presents the spirit of this resident of Yogyakarta.

Adih has participated regularly in the festival since 2011, when he was eliminated in the first round. In his second year, 2012, he reached the top 10, and in 2013 received a special award from a panel of judges led by veteran actor and director Slamet Rahardjo Djarot for several aspects in his movie.

DFF 2014 organizing committee chairman Agung Bawantara said the movies to be presented would not only be from the festival'€™s participants. In May, he said, he would present a film produced by an elementary school fourth-grader, who once joined the festival'€™s training program.

The purpose of this was to emphasize the fact that creativity in filmmaking was not limited by age. '€œLimited equipment isn'€™t a problem either,'€ he said.

'€œThat'€™s why we developed the 8-8-3 concept; eight pages of narration, with eight pictures from at least three sources is sufficient,'€ he said.

According to Bawantara, film was a media to deliver messages and required a wide range of knowledge. To pack the message well required a comprehensive understanding of the topic being presented.