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View all search resultsIne Febriyanti: Tackling life
Kapanlagi
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span class="caption" style="width: 298px;">Kapanlagi.com/Ruben Daniel“Loves challenges” is a phrase often used to boost one’s image in a job application or in a general effort to describe oneself.
But, not as many people are willing to truly act on the phrase with the grinning optimism and daredevil-like attitude of actress Ine Febriyanti.
Her partly accidental plunge into the arts over a decade ago has led her to various experiments in her career, ranging from modeling and playing in sinetron (Indonesian soap operas) to discovering a love for theater.
Ine’s latest achievement, however, came not by acting but by going behind the camera to direct Tuhan pada Jam 10 Malam or God at 10 p.m. According to Ine, the movie tells the story of how a person’s dark side can prevail despite outward appearances of piety.
Ine might be a familiar figure in the world of entertainment these days, gracing many stages, but her childhood and early teenage years saw her as a tomboy whose stunts often caused her mother concern.
She took up mountain climbing in high school despite her family’s objections, and her other pastimes include swimming and riding her bike.
According to Ine, part of why she loves mountain climbing is her conviction that if she can survive sleeping on rough terrain, she would have a better chance of surviving elsewhere.
Even now, she prefers a natural look, and when The Jakarta Post came to visit her at her home in South Jakarta, she was wearing a T-shirt and casual slacks, her face free of make-up.
“My mother was scared because I was like a boy. [Singer] Krisdayanti is my cousin, and my mother asked her, ‘Yanti, can you help her?’ Yanti has always been girly since she was little, wearing lipstick and everything — things that I would shudder at,” Ine said.
Yanti persuaded Ine in the early 1990s to have her photo taken for a cover girl competition in Mode magazine. Contrary to Ine’s secret wish, she won second place. She went to the models’ quarantine period with a big scab on her leg — a product of her bike-riding.
After several photo sessions, she was offered a role in the Darah Biru (Blue Blood) series. She later became acquainted with a young director named Aria Kusumadewa, who was known for a number of eccentric, independent works.
Ine played the leading role in Aria’s Beth, which tells the story of the troubled love of a military general’s daughter, who was forced to spend time in a mental hospital, as well as an earlier role in Aria’s television work Dewi Selebriti.
Dissatisfied with her own acting, she looked for ways to improve her skills, and theater became her method of choice.
“When I was still in high school, I never wanted to get into the arts. I first acted in sinetron. Aria asked me to [act] in the shoot and I cringed seeing the results. I felt that I needed to learn [how to act], so I discovered theater,” Ine said.
At that time, a role was indeed available for Strindberg’s Miss Julie, which was being staged by the Jakarta Institute of Art’s Teater Lembaga, but it was considered a risky role for a beginner and required her to perform for three hours on stage.
“I said yes anyway because I really love challenges. After I played in Miss Julie, I had the surprising response of people saying it was really great, so I continued,” Ine said.
Her theater achievements increased, with notable roles in Surti dan Tiga Sawunggaling by Goenawan Mohamad, as well as performances in cooperation with Japanese artists in Tokyo and Osaka.
But she never really returned to sinetron or films. According to Ine, Beth was the only movie she considers herself to have fully participated in, and she never actually saw herself returning to sinetron.
“I don’t think [sinetron], where [actors] play their sleeping scenes in full makeup is my world,” Ine said. Movie roles are also chosen carefully because she refuses to play the role of “some guy’s girlfriend” and prefers stronger characters.
Ine retains her distaste for seeing herself act on camera, but said she has been watching Tuhan pada Jam 10 Malam, in which she was the woman behind all the shots, proudly.
The movie has been screened in Yogyakarta and Surakarta to favorable responses, she said. The movie’s road show is scheduled to resume in December.
Ine said the film was yet another daring move of hers, having only participated in making short films before. “[People say] it’s crazy — my first experience, and yet with a heavy theme like this. But never mind,” she said with the faraway, cheeky look she often displays when talking about challenges.
Inspired by a short story in Kompas titled “Eksperimen Moral” (Moral Experiment), Tuhan was initially slated as a short film but developed into a 50-minute-long story, in which a teacher commits a shocking offense despite his constant moral teachings.
The movie’s tagline, “Edging God Out”, which forms the acronym EGO, signals a slightly dark side to the story, with religious touches.
Ine said she discovered spirituality on her own. Coming from a family of mixed religions and not particularly strict in imposing one or the other, she grew up learning about the subject from various sources.
Her house, which boasts a spacious green yard and a Javanese-style common room, often becomes a place for local residents to carry out Koran recitals, rebab (a stringed instrument) rehearsals and gatherings.
Ine shares the house with her husband, renowned cinematographer Yudi Datau, and her three children — the reason for her four-year absence from the entertainment world.
“Being a mother is hard, especially for me, someone who always keeps a backpack in my car in case I suddenly want to go to the mountains,” she said.
If it wasn’t for that hobby, she probably would not have met Yudi in 1995 when she was coming back from a climb on Ciremai Mountain in West Java.
“I felt sorry for him because he didn’t bring any food. I offered him mine, we looked at each other and I felt I had known him for a long time,” Ine recalled.
At that time, however, she was still in a relationship with the son of folk singer Iwan Fals, Galang Rambu Anarki. Galang died a few years later at the age of 15, and images of teary-eyed Ine were scattered in the media in the wake of his death.
“I cried all the time then,” she recalled.
Ine now has her own way of dealing with grief and misfortune. “I learned to meditate … It’s all in one’s mind. There is nothing that is truly bad in this world because it all depends on our attitude. If we have bad intentions, then bad things will come out of them,” she said.
