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View all search resultsMadani Film Fest: Rhoma Irama, preaching and Muslim cultures
A film festival features 17 films depicting Muslim diversity in Indonesia as well as rarely seen titles coming from the Muslim communities in Iran, Nigeria, Singapore, Thailand and the conflict-stricken Afghanistan.
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F
or Indonesian people and overseas fans, he is the King of Dangdut, whose songs that started an era of pop music in the 1970s remain the anthem of today.
His popularity led him to star in 29 films, some of which have been an endless source of memes using his characters’ dialog.
It is less known, however, that those films served as a form of catharsis to the suppression of missionary endeavors during the authoritarian regime of president Soeharto.
The films of Rhoma Irama will among those showcased at the 2020 Madani Film Festival, which runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 4.
The king himself will appear in a public discussion with filmmaker Garin Nugroho at the online festival, which is themed Re(Dis)covery, a stylized portmanteau of “recovery” and “rediscovery”.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Garin said the festival would revisit Rhoma Irama’s films under a program called Focus: Rhoma Irama, Gitar dan Dakwah (Guitar and Preach), a rediscovery of their values and relevance for Indonesia today.
