Indonesia is taking advantage of its rising movie industry in an attempt to secure a place among the non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council for the fourth time.

Having last sat on the council from 2007 to 2008, Indonesia is seeking enough votes to allow it to take a seat for the 2019 to 2020 period.

Consequently, the Foreign Ministry asked Livi Zheng, an Indonesian filmmaker who has already left a mark on the United States film industry, to help lure votes from the UN General Assembly during the Security Council membership election in New York in June 2018.

Livi, who had her 2014 action-drama movie Brush with Danger nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 2015, agreed to the request by directing a film entitled Indonesia: A True Partner for World Peace.

The movie, which was made in two countries, depicts Indonesia’s experiences participating in UN peacekeeping forces, as well as Indonesia’s power in the form of weapons and soldiers, Livi said.

”So, we employed techniques for wide-screen movies to deliver messages, which among others is that Indonesia is ready to be the Security Council’s non-permanent member,” she said in a press statement on Thursday. “In Jakarta, we shot in the Foreign Ministry to take pictures of Minister Retno LP Marsudi and in the historic Pancasila Building.”

She added that she and her team also shot footage in the Indonesia Peace and Security Center (IPSC) in Sentul, West Java — the base of the Indonesian Military’s (TNI) armed personnel carriers assigned to the international peacekeeping missions.

There, Livi involved hundreds of TNI officers from various divisions, such as 850 peacekeeping troops going to Lebanon and 309 personnel of the Force Protection Company.

Filming also took place in New York, where she shot, among others, Indonesian Ambassador to the UN Dian Triansyah Djani.

Prior to the membership election in June, which is held by secret ballot and without nominations, the movie is set to be played in the UN headquarters in New York and in Indonesia’s representative offices around the world.

“As an Indonesian, [I feel] honored [to be part of the campaign]. I hope Indonesia will be reelected to be a non-permanent member,” she said.

Meanwhile, Retno claimed that Indonesia, which is home to 1,300 ethnic groups on 17,000 islands, was an ideal candidate for the 2019 to 2020 membership because of its commitment to project tolerance and pluralism through its bilateral ties.

Moreover, she said Indonesia has actively pushed democracy by, among other things, holding the annual Bali Democracy Forum and it has shown its commitment to UN peacekeeping with its plan to deploy 4,000 peacekeepers by 2019.

Currently, the country is the 10th largest contributor to peacekeeping missions out of 124 countries.

If Indonesia is elected to the Security Council for the 2019 to 2020 period, it will replace Kazakhstan.

Countries sitting as non-permanent members do not have the veto rights held by the permanent members, which are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Meanwhile, Livi has another feature film coming out in 2018, a martial arts movie called Insight that tells the story of a pair of siblings, Jian (Ken Zheng) and Bao, who have a sixth sense.

Long separated, problems arise when Jian received a shocking news that Bao was killed in Los Angeles. Jian flies to the US to investigate the cause of his brother’s death.

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