(Courtesy of SBO Films)

Meet Ifa Isfansyah, again. If the name does not sound familiar, despite repeated brief mentions in several articles found in this paper in the past, that is because Ifa has been largely under the radar in the commercial-friendly Indonesian film scene.

Born in Yogyakarta 30 years ago, Ifa made his name in short films at both local and international levels.

Among his notable works are Harap Tenang, Ada Ujian! (Be Quiet, Exam in Progress!), a unique observation on the 2006 World Cup against the backdrop of the major earthquake in Yogyakarta around the same time, and Huan Chen Guang (Happiness Morning Light), a 15-minute film on the personal impact on a local Chinese girl of the 1998 riots.

Harap Tenang won the award for best short film at the much-derided 2006 Indonesian Festival Film, and Huan Chen Guang was included in the anthology 9808, a compilation of short films touching on the 1998 riots, whose world premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea last year was met with warm reception.

As in the case of many directors of short films waiting for his break in a feature-length film, Ifa has now stepped into the limelight with his feature debut, Garuda Di Dadaku (Garuda in My Heart).

Released on June 18, the film keeps up with its patriotic title in telling the story of a young boy’s dream to become a professional soccer player in Indonesia’s top league.

The drama comes from his grandfather’s opposition to the idea, and so begins all the emotional moments of the boy’s fight to make his dreams come true, all of which bring the film to prominence as a family film, rather than a sports film.

A director tackling a children’s film and child actors on his debut?

Ifa gave his assuring smile when I confronted him with the question, as though he wanted to say, “I know what I’m doing here,” while what he actually said was, “I am that patient! Trust me!”

Is this the usual pitch he gives to producers? He laughed, and told me that, “Child actors are basically children, so they like to play a lot on set. Sometimes I get frustrated with this. At one point,

I even told Emir Mahira, who played the leading role and the one who never took his character seriously, ‘Do whatever you want, I don’t want to direct you!’ But then the camera got one of the most moving scenes in the film!

“At that time, I realized this film belonged to them. This is their world, and we, the adults, are like the keepers.”

Throughout the conversation, Ifa threw in many soccer terms. Obviously a result of staying put with the film for more than half a year, from the preproduction stage to the shooting process, but drawing further from his past, his familiarity with the sport had been cultivated in his childhood.

“I lived in a small village in Yogyakarta, and we had this soccer club called ‘Kuraba’, short for Kurang Ragad Ada Bakat [lack of capital, but plenty of talents],” he chuckled.

“As time went by, the club got a few props and became ‘Curaba’, or Cukup Ragad Ada Bakat [enough capital, still have talent]!

“I guess it was also because of my upbringing. You see, I was raised in a Muhammadiyah family, and the organization has quite a structured soccer club, called Hisbul Wathon. I was there, I had my first soccer uniform, and I felt great wearing that!

“I played soccer until junior high. I was in my school team, but I was only a substitute. That’s why when the school won the provincial championship, I wasn’t proud about the certificate I got. I didn’t play at all.”

A brief fling with basketball and playing bass in a school band may be the typical path for any high school student, including Ifa, but it was his interest in theater that led him to enroll in the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, majoring in television studies.

Before long, Ifa went on to direct short films, make a short film movement called Four Colors Films, and learn a particular lesson when he received a directing scholarship from the Asian Film Academy Pusan International Film Festival in Im Kwon Taek, College of Film.

“I protested against one my lecturers’ theories, because he said directing children was more difficult than directing animals,” he recalled.

“You can treat them like adults, because you only need to talk to the animal trainers. I didn’t agree with his theory. I find children are also adults in a smaller version. They’re special, they have their own worlds, and they need to be treated with special manners.

“After all, what I learned from Garuda is that in this kind of film, you have to keep thinking it’s just a film, so let’s play! You have no idea how much you can get from such a spirit. Basically I learned a lot from the kids in making this film.”

As exuberant as he may sound, Ifa also keeps up the playful spirit during the endless rounds of promo stints for the film. Noting that he “is typical of a newbie director who is still excited with all the previews, all the promotional events”, Ifa is willing to put on hold thoughts of future projects “at least for a month after the end of the whole promotional circuit”.

A considerable thought, indeed, given that his next directorial outing may be a far cry from the joyous children film: an adaptation the highly acclaimed Indonesian novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk (The Dancer) and a personal project called Rumah dan Musim Hujan (literally The House and the Rainy Season, but translated in English as One Day When the Rain Falls), which has already received an initial grant from the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s Hubert Bals Fund.

With this promising future and a commendable track record so far, all we can say is: Welcome to the real world of filmmaking, Ifa!

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