P

apuan director Irham Acho Bahtiar has made films with Papuan people to show that they also have what it takes to work in the industry.

Many filmmakers have visited Papua and screened their films but what distinguishes Irham is that he empowers and trains Papuans on filmmaking as well as making them cast and crew members in his films, instead of merely exposing the province'€™s beauty.

'€œI want to accommodate talented Papuans who have [film industry] potential. I don'€™t want them to be underestimated. I want to raise up the name of Papua,'€ said Irham, who has made six films about Papua since 2009.

Hailing from Merauke, Irham previously worked in Jakarta and has directed documentaries, video clips, public service ads and children'€™s television series since 1994.

In 2000, he returned to Merauke to fulfill a promise to establish and develop local cinema in Papua after finishing his study at the Jakarta Arts Institute'€™s (IKJ) film and television school, a school he had dreamt about ever since he was a senior high school student.

'€œI studied at IKJ because I wanted to be a director. But, before I went to Jakarta, I promised my friends that I would return and implement my knowledge in Papua; that I would make something for Papua,'€ said the father of two, who was born 38 years ago in Merauke, the southeastern tip of Papua, bordering Papua New Guinea.

His first film about Papua, Melody Kota Rusa (The Melody of Deer City), tells the story of a band who hunts deer and crocodiles at night to make a living in Merauke, dubbed the City of Deer in the 1990s because it had a lot of deer back then.

The band, Irham said, actually exists in real life. In the 1980s, he often saw the band perform in his village. Its members went to the jungle at night to hunt to save money to record an album. Today, the band members still hold on to their dream, which has yet to be realized.

'€œAll the cast and crew in this film [Melody Kota Rusa] were blind when it comes to film making. They had no knowledge about it at all. I was the only one who understood it and I shared my knowledge with them,'€ he said.

Irham understood that people in Merauke had really missed local films ever since the last movie theater had closed in 1995 and been converted into a badminton court. He, however, never thought that his film would become a hit. Thousands of people watched it when the Merauke regency administration screened it at the Hasanab Sai field.

Now, Merauke still does not have a movie theater.

In Merauke, 1,000 original DVDs of Melody Kota Rusa were sold out in just two weeks, but the sales of its pirated copies was even faster, helping the film rise to fame quickly, even outside Papua.

Irham said that people in Papua loved Melody Kota Rusa because it contained local anecdotes and slang that they were familiar with.

One popular slang term is epen?, the abbreviation of, Emang penting kah? (Is that important?), and its response, cupen, short for Cukup penting toh? (Fairly important, yeah?).

The success then motivated Irham to make comedy sketches titled Epen Cupen with the aim of displaying Papua'€™s social life using its popular anecdotes and slang.

Since 2010, he has produced more than 300 sketches and has uploaded some many of them to Youtube. Merauke TV also airs them to entertain viewers.

Irham was surprised after his low-budget comedy sketches, shot with a camera he uses for wedding videos, grabbed the attention of many, with responses generally in praise of his work, though not always.

He said that he did not feel offended when some viewers claimed his sketches were not funny but racist.

'€œHonestly, most Papuan anecdotes contain pornography and material related to SARA [ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup relations]. From 100 [anecdotes], we can use only 20 or 30. We have been very careful in selecting them,'€ Irham said.

In 2011, Irham planned to bring the comedy sketches to the silver screen, proposing Epen Cupen The Movie, and, in 2015, he succeeded. He said that convincing production houses was a hard nut to crack, and they rejected it many times.

'€œThe producers said Papuans did not have the capacity and that commercially, they would not sell,'€ he said.

Irham was over the moon after learning that Epen Cupen The Movie grabbed more than 130,000 viewers in theaters in May. The achievement returned confidence to his Papuan team who had previously been considered incapable.

Now, Irham still teaches and trains local people interested in film-making through the South Papua Film Community, founded in 2012.

He also teamed up with Jakarta-based producer to make Noble Hearts: Mentari di Ufuk Timur (Noble Hearts: Sun on the Eastern Horizon) staring actor Mathias Muchus, actress Nadine Chandrawinata and more than 50 Papuans.

'€œI see a lot of talent in Papua. Currently, [in film industry] Papuans emerge and then disappear. I want them to have a continuous presence,'€ he said.

'€œThe Papuans are also only positioned as minor parts. I want them to be the main characters. I want them to be like Will Smith or Denzel Washington.'€