Damien Dematra: Courtesy of Damien Dematra

It is 11:10 a.m. Writer Damien Dematra appears in the corridor that leads to the restaurant where we have an appointment. Dressed in black, his long hair tight in an elastic, his gait rhythmed by his leather boots, Damien looks like a rock star.

He could actually be one. Damien has been successively a painter, a photographer, a writer and is now a director.

He recently co-directed with John de Rantau Obama Anak Menteng (Obama the Menteng Kid) a movie about the Indonesian childhood of the American president in the late sixties. The film was based on his novel of the same name published in March 2010.

This film inevitably raised controversy about its content and the production process. How can you produce a movie about the life of the president of the US in less than three months (two months of pre-production and twenty one days of shooting)? How can you be relevant? How can you gather reliable background information in such a short time?

Damien doesn't seem to be bothered by this question, as he doesn't consider his movie as a biography but rather fiction. The goal of the young director is not to paint a perfect and historically accurate picture of Obama's life in Indonesia.

"It's a movie about pluralism and hope," he told The Jakarta Post. "I wanted to focus more on the memories he left for his schoolmates."

This could explain why Damien did not try contacting Obama to get information about his childhood.

One could easily assume that Damien is a longtime fan of the first African-American president of the US.

But when asked when his fascination for Obama started, the answer was quite surprising: "2009," he said. You may recall that the most recent US presidential election was in 2008 and Damien was in fact rooting for Obama's rival during the primary, former first lady Hillary Clinton, "I did not like Obama, I was so disappointed when he was chosen over Clinton."

It is hard then to understand why he'd write three books and one movie (soon two) about a person he has only been "okay with" for one year. But Damien is consistent with his answer: "This is not so much a movie about Barack Obama, but rather about a 10-year-old African-American kid who landed in Indonesia for the first time, and who was going to be confronted with racism, difference and pluralism. And it is this confrontation that may have helped him to become the president of the United States".

Damien never lived in the US, but he seems to be strangely influenced by the American dream. His movie follows the familiar American "from-rags-to-riches" storyline. Obama Anak Menteng is the story of this African-American kid who played soccer in the mud with street kids and grew up to become the president of the most powerful nation in the world.

The movie shows him reciting the national anthem Indonesia Raya in class, learning boxing from his Indonesian step-father Lolo Soetoro, feeling guilty because he hit a local kid and apologized for it, Hollywood-style soundtrack playing in the background.

Damien doesn't have a car driver. He does not like someone else driving for him. He just wants to be the only master of the piece, something that has created some problems during the movie production. Because he was too busy with other writing projects, he was forced to hire a second director for Obama Anak Menteng.

But we also have to wonder whether Damien could maintain his artistic integrity with his spartan method, which helped him produce 365 books, 40 paintings and 20 movies. How can you actually produce so much without falling into the trap of mediocrity?

Perhaps Damien should have taken more time preparing for the movie, for instance finding a white woman to play the role of Stanley Ann Dunham with a proper American accent instead of woman speaking with a strong English accent in the movie.

But after hours interviewing him, I understqnd he is the kinf of impatient artist who wants for things to come out fast. "Otherwise, I will lose it," he said. He usually writes a book in three or four days straight.

That may be possible for a painting, a photograph or even, to a considerable extent, a book. But it is much harder when it comes to movies. Especially when the final product depends not on one person but on hundreds: Actors, camera operators, sound engineers, set designers and make-up artists.

But Damien is a neophyte in the movie business. And we can bet that if his first movie could not get critical acclaim, the man will for sure grow to become a prominent Indonesian director in the years to come.

He had made art-house movies, which he deems unsuitable for an Indonesian audience. "Maybe for the crowd at European festivals," he says.

And if there is something that could define Dematra, it is his intuition. And that intuition has brought him pretty far now.

As a student, he won five international awards in photography for a set of pictures he initially presented as requirement for his college graduation. Feeling that he could not do better, he then switched to painting and then writing.

Today, cinema is his real challenge, and you can tell that he will probably take it up.

Damien is a hard worker. When he picked up one of his BlackBerries several times in the afternoon of my interview, his assistant told me that his boss often did not sleep for several days.

But paradoxically enough, Damien does not believe in meritocracy, in working hard to reach the top.

In his opinion, it is talent that counts. He said this was a reason he did not cast professional actors for his movie.

"Acting is a little death" he says. Acting should be something that comes out from the inside, something impulsive, spontaneous. He does not appreciate the "switching on and off" ability of professional actors.

Of course he admits that they are still good, but would rather chose "pure souls" when possible. He considers that a book, a painting or a movie should impose itself to the artist. Art imposes itself to the artist who becomes a kind of conveyor belt, the carrier of what he considered was a divine will.

In a press conference a journalist said to him, "God created the world in seven days, so in a way you are trying to play God." This question made him laugh. Damien defines himself as a "spiritual but not a religious, exigent and instinctive person".

It is quite surprising though, for a man who is so reluctant to talk about his past, a man of no past and no roots, as he likes to picture himself, to be that fascinated by ethnic origins and cultures. Two things that become hallmarks of the Obama movie.

Damien just does not want to talk about his age or where he comes from. Is he ashamed? Did something happen? Does he feel younger than he actually is? This remains a mystery that he cleverly feeds until he will finally unveil it in an autobiography that he is planning on writing soon.

If there is one thing to take from Damien, it is that he is a humane person, someone who is curious and fascinated by the story of people.

His work revolves around the idea that every story is worth telling.

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