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Daniel Ziv: Jakarta's streetside character & soul
(JP/Niken Pathivi and AFP)For Daniel Ziv, Jakarta is more than just traffic jams, pollution and corruption
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(JP/Niken Pathivi and AFP) (JP/Niken Pathivi and AFP)
(JP/Niken Pathivi and AFP)
For Daniel Ziv, Jakarta is more than just traffic jams, pollution and corruption.
The majority of people in Jakarta are honest, friendly and nice. I've found many interesting people in Jakarta that have great stories about their lives and are amazing,' the Canadian says in fluent Indonesian.
'We have to see deeper than just the city's external look. We really have to feel Jakarta's character and soul,' said Ziv, 42, who moved to Jakarta in 1999 and has since been documenting life in the big city.
As a writer, Ziv has been eager in exposing lesser known stories. He founded the monthly Djakarta! The City Life Magazine and is author of Jakarta Inside Out.
His most recent work is feature-length documentary film titled Jalanan (Streetside).
The film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea in October, where it won the prize for best documentary.
'Jalanan is a portrait of contemporary Indonesia seen through the eyes of three street performers in Jakarta ' Boni, Ho and Titi.
'It follows their lives for five years, including their struggles, their hopes and dreams, their disappointments, and importantly, their music. Their original compositions and amazing lyrics are used as a storytelling device in the movie,' Ziv told The Jakarta Post prior to a press screening in Jakarta.
Jalanan began a limited release on April 10, screening at XXI theaters in Plaza Senayan in Central Jakarta and Blok M Square in South Jakarta and at the Blitz Megaplex at Grand Indonesia in Central Jakarta.
Commercial theaters in Indonesia aren't familiar with screening documentaries, making the exhibition of Jalanan an achievement, he says.
'This whole cinematic launch of Jalanan is an unusual experiment: A domestic documentary has never had a proper theatrical release in Indonesia, because documentaries here are generally stigmatized as being boring, 'heavy', and full of talking heads and long interviews.'
He continues. 'Jalanan is a very different animal: It is colorful, engaging, fast-paced, full of humor and personal drama and totally story and character-driven. Many viewers walk out feeling they watched a fiction film, and ask me if it's real.'
Ziv, who has a master's degree in Southeast Asian Studies from University of London, said that he wanted to make a documentary film that was engaging and fun to watch even though it focused on the marginalized poor.
'In Jakarta, the street people I know tend to laugh and joke around more than the rich, because they have a healthy, ironic view on life, and they don't take themselves as seriously,' Ziv says. 'They are proud and they are mostly happy. To portray these people as somehow always sad or needing our pity would be dishonest.'
Ziv also wanted to move the media focus away from the rich, noting that many sinetron soap operas tell stories of the wealthy in their mansions to be watched by the working class with envy and admiration.
'Jalanan is a story told by three working class poor people about their own lives in the margins ' and is about to be showcased in cinemas in some of the fanciest malls in Jakarta, meaning that rich people are potentially going to pay money to watch a movie told by the poor.'
Ziv said that the documentary was shot over a period of five years and edited for a year and a half.
'When you're documenting real life, interesting events don't just happen on demand ' unless you manufacture them, which I never wanted to do. So I had to be very patient, and just observe.
'We needed to spend another 18 months editing all the material and finding a coherent and cleverly woven storyline that would bring it all together in an enjoyable way for the viewer,' Ziv said.
He wants Jalanan to be seen by Indonesian people, instead of an international audience. 'It's great to win the [Busan] prize, but I think it's more important to have this film become something domestically.'
However, despite making an inspiring documentary, Ziv said that he still wasn't sure that film making was his calling.
'I was drawn to the story of Jalanan not because of any ambition to become a filmmaker or a even a quest to find a 'good topic' for a documentary, but because one day on the streets of Jakarta I stumbled across a gang of unique individuals whose amazing life story I could not ignore.
'I saw this community, or sub-culture, of thousands of street musicians hacking out a modest living by hopping on and off buses, composing their own political and social songs, and realized this was totally unique in Southeast Asia, and maybe in the world,' he shared.
He initially wrote a few feature articles about the community, but found the printed page to be limiting for such a colorful and musical story.
'I realized the story would best be served by film ' and it was a story that happened to contain everything a documentary filmmaker could ask for: contagious personalities, compelling social justice issues, individual struggles that shed light on universal issues, cheeky humor, a colorful urban subculture, and, as an added bonus, a built-in soundtrack of wonderful original music.'
