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Young filmmakers aim to change views of evictions
Bad memory: Evictees from Bukit Duri watch the documentary film Jakarta Unfair in their former neighborhood on the banks of the Ciliwung River in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, last Friday evening
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span class="inline inline-center">Bad memory: Evictees from Bukit Duri watch the documentary film Jakarta Unfair in their former neighborhood on the banks of the Ciliwung River in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, last Friday evening. The documentary is about the 2015 and 2016 evictions by the Jakarta administration from the perspective of the evictees.(Courtesy Lendi Bambang/WatchDoc)
The audience, mostly evictees, turned silent when they saw the scene showing their houses being demolished in a documentary titled Jakarta Unfair, which was screened by the Ciliwung River bank in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, last Friday.
“Astagfirullah [may God spare me],” said one of the audience members at the open-door screening situated near their former houses, which have now become empty fields.
The dramatic scene came after footage of then-Jakarta gubernatorial hopefuls Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama promising not to evict them.
The silence continued when the documentary moved to the low-cost apartments to where some of the evictees had been relocated.
Most of them vented about similar things – the loss in income and the threat of being evicted once again.
“I’ve already received the warning letters. I owe the administration Rp 1.1 million [US$84.70]. I do not know how to pay them,” said Etti, a former Kampung Pulo resident relocated to the nearby Jatinegara low-cost apartment complex in East Jakarta, in the documentary.
The film, produced by WatchDoc Production House in cooperation with 16 college students, revolves around the forced eviction of residents orchestrated by the city administration in various areas, including Kampung Pulo in South Jakarta, Kali Jodoh in West Jakarta, Pasar Ikan in North Jakarta and Kampung Dadap in Tangerang. The film also shows the plight of the evictees after losing access to their livelihood.
The Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) has recorded that evictions took place across 113 locations in 2015 and 325 are targeted for 2016.
According to an LBH survey, most of the evictees are not properly relocated. Most still face problems, including a loss in income.
The film shows that at least 6,000 families are threatened with a further eviction from their apartments as they cannot pay the rent, which averages Rp 300,000 (US$23.10) per month.
Dhuha Ramadhani, one of the directors, said 16 college students participated in the production with Watchdoc to present a side to the eviction story rarely talked about in the mainstream media.
“I myself was a student in criminology at the University of Indonesia. This is the first time I held a camera but I wanted to understand and help,” he said.
Dhuha said the filming process, starting last May, helped him to understand many things about evictions. “I stayed over in all the locations. I know how it feels and what I got in the field is totally different from what I watched on the TV news or what I learned on campus,” he said.
“Our aim is to give voice to the voiceless through this film. We want to show the eviction process from the perspective of the evictees,” he said.
Besides making films, some other middle-class youngsters, who are not affected directly by evictions, have also started to research the issue.
Devil Rinaldo, a 24-year-old college graduate majoring in Planology, for example, said he had decided to join Ciliwung Merdeka, an organization that advocates for the residents of Bukit Duri, last year after witnessing the eviction process in Kampung Pulo.
“I wanted to help after realizing that what the city administration claimed about the residents was wrong. I learned that historically, villages were built on river banks,” he said.
Occupying state land on river banks is one of the reasons the city administration emphasized to justify the forced eviction of the residents.
The residents were evicted for a river normalization project, even though they had lived there for generations.
Sugiyanti, a 34-year-old Bukit Duri resident, said she could not bear the stigma stamped on them by the media and the city administration.
“We are not spoiled residents. We proposed solutions for building low-cost apartments near our homes. However, they did not want to listen,” she said after the screening.
Sugiyanti, who was born and raised in Bukit Duri, said she was agitated by the way media and the government had treated the residents, especially the way the government had labeled them “illegal.”
“When our lawsuit [against the eviction] was accepted by the court, the administration sent us warning letters. Who is behaving in an illegal way?” she said.
