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Meet the man behind Indonesia’s first-ever Cannes prize
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Movie director Wregas Bhanutedja (right) greets the press during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. (Courtesy of Studio Batu)
W
span style="line-height: 1.6em;">Wregas Bhanutedja is a 23-year-old director who recently became the first-ever Indonesian to win a Cannes Film Festival award with his short movie Prenjak/In The Year Of The Monkey.
Teaming up with his high-school buddies and girlfriend, Wregas came out on top at the prestigious festival with the Leica Cine Discovery prize – an award from the Critics' Week category granted to new talents in short movies.
"We believed that what we did this year would be big. This Year of the Fire Monkey is our year," said Wregas, adding that he and his friends were born in 1992, which was also a Year of the Monkey.
According to the Chinese shio (zodiac), people born in a Year of the Monkey will succeed in this Year of the Fire Monkey.
So who is Wregas, this new rising talent?
For Indonesian cinema followers, Wregas is not a new face as he has been involved in several silver-screen movies, like Sokola Rimba (Jungle School) and Ada Apa Dengan Cinta 2 (What's Up With Cinta 2) – both created by the prominent and dynamic producer-director duo of Mira Lesmana and Riri Reza.
Before working on big movies, Wregas, along with his magical ideas, garnered prizes in several local and international competitions for his short movies, which often carry deep messages in their lighthearted plots.
His short movie Lembusura, for example, made him the youngest director at the 2015 Berlinale Film Festival with a story inspired by the Javanese legend of the Mount Kelud eruption, better known as Lembu Sura.
"I had been wondering when I could walk the red carpet at a prestigious film festival. Surprisingly, I finally made it last year when I was still 22 years old," Wregas told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
Several months after the Berlin festival, Wregas walked another red carpet for the 2015 Hong Kong International Film Festival because of Lembusura.
His name registered again at the 2016 Hong Kong Festival for two short movies, Lembusura and The Floating Chopin. The latter is a short he made during a vacation in Yogyakarta with his girlfriend Ersya Ruswandono, who is also a young moviemaker.
Wregas, a graduate of the Jakarta Arts Institute’s (IKJ) School of Film and Television, took his first steps in moviemaking when he was just a 12th grader, creating his first short movie entitled Dagen Van Java, dedicated to his junior high school SMP Stella Duce 1 in Dagen, Yogyakarta.
He explored his potential as a moviemaker more deeply when he attended boys’ high school SMA Kolese De Britto in Yogyakarta, where he joined extracurricular activities in cinematography. There, he created several short movies and began to enter competitions.
Also during high school, he began connecting with friends who were enthusiastic about movies, arts and literature.
Six years later, in early 2016, Wregas and some of his high-school buddies decided to establish a creative community space in Sosrowijayan, Yogyakarta, called Studio Batu, where they eventually had the idea of interpreting a Yogyakarta cultural practice dating back to the 1980s through Prenjak – which is also the Indonesian name for bar-winged prinia birds.
On the art space's wall, they wrote “Cannes” in bold lettering before they proceeded with the shoot, which only took two days due to their tight work and study schedules.
Three days before the registration closed, the Prenjak team submitted the project to the 2016 Cannes Film Festival with the hope that the movie would at least be screened at the event.
Hence, the announcement on Thursday of Prenjak’s win certainly created butterflies in the stomachs of all Studio Batu members, who at the time were separated across various cities and countries.
The win has encouraged them to create more work together, despite their different jobs and study commitments. They plan to make longer films in the future.
Prenjak was one of two Indonesian films at Cannes this year.
The 12-minute short movie centers around widow Diah, who offers a single matchstick for Rp 10,000 (73 US cents) to a man named Jarwo during her lunch break at work. At the same time, Diah offers a more interesting deal, in which Jarwo would have the opportunity to take a peek at Diah's body by lightning up the match in a dark place.
Her offers are meant simply to make money.
"Why is Diah so desperate for money? Well, you will have to find out the answer by yourself by watching the film," said Wregas.
The other Indonesian movie represented at the festival was a dramatic thriller entitled Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts – the only movie from Southeast Asia in the L’Atelier Cinéfondation category.
L’Atelier is a program under Cinéfondation that aims to connect young moviemakers, producers and international distributors.
The movie, directed by Mouly Surya, features a woman in Sumba who decapitates a man and takes his head on a journey after he and his friends rob her home. (dmr)
