F

ilmmaker Dimas Brodjonegoro returns with Jentera, a short film that focuses on the life of a sex worker on the day of her 25th birthday.

Moody and contemplative, the film has a lot of Dimas'€™ stylistic tendencies and his penchant for brooding lines.

At only 19 minutes, Jentera manages to capture the plight that faces less-than-fortunate Indonesians and the archaic social stigma that still haunts those whose lines of work are considered lesser than most.

According to the director, the word jentera comes from '€œwheels that pivot'€. In the film'€™s case, it means that its theme revolves or pivots around the same thing over and over (humanity, empathy).

Although the film is currently only being screened at selected festivals '€” having premiered a couple of weeks ago at Kemang'€™s Pavilun 28 venue in Jakarta '€” its creators hope to find a distributor that could help the film reach an even wider audience.

Admitting he was inspired by the nature of '€œpeople who are always moaning about their lives'€, Dimas wanted to write a movie that dealt with the issue of predetermined fate.

A deeply religious filmmaker, Dimas believed that '€œcomplainers'€ were not only unappreciative in nature, but were constantly failing to see the bigger picture that, he believes, God has planned for them.

Speaking of God, Dimas says that '€œHe always has things '€˜cooking'€™ for us and when you want a good meal, you would have to wait, right? When we force or go against God'€™s plans, things might go the way we want them to, but they may not be according to God'€™s original plan. Then everything just becomes messy and absurd. That'€™s what I wanted to show in the film.'€

His central point was, however, about the treatment of sex workers in the country, which he says were based on actual stories.

The first one involved a sex worker who was captured for days, beaten and raped by an assailant, and who managed to escape and run to the police '€” only to have the law officers book and charge her instead for being engaged in an illegal line of work.

'€œI also wanted to point out that a lot of sex workers are doing it because they have no other alternative and have to survive and then they just don'€™t know how to get out of it.'€

Jentera'€™s shoot was done in a mere two days, although the overall production, including preparation, took three months.

Funding the project from their own personal pockets, Dimas and his producer, Andy Harviandono, had to find actors who were willing to act for little or no fee, which meant they had to work around the actors'€™ busy schedules. Those challenges, however, resulted in a positive learning process, says Dimas.

Although he remains tight-lipped about which local and international festivals will screen Jentera, he promises that the whole film will be uploaded for free viewing on the Internet after the whole campaign reaches its end.

There are also plans to shoot a longer a version of Jentera, the way Dimas says he originally planned it.

'€œThere is a chance the scriptwriter, Ndit Naratama, and I will create a longer version with new intrigues and issues we could talk about. We'€™ll see what happens and whether we will be able to secure the funding for that.'€