Monica Vanesa Tedja’s Dear to Me (2021) has landed the emerging director two nominations and one award, as well as accolades from several prestigious international film festivals.

The short film tells the story of a young gay man as he navigates his sexuality and his longing to meet his soul mate, during a holiday on a resort island with his more conventional parents.

"They say all our dreams have meaning. It's like our subconscious mind is trying to tell us something," says Tim, the protagonist in Dear to Me played by actor Jourdy Pranata.

The same could be said for filmmaking.

“There's one theme that keeps popping up in your head and you want to talk about it to people, but [the medium is] audiovisual," Monica explained.

"It's interesting that [when] I mean something, a conversation starts and a new theme or path [appears] from [other] perspectives. That's how rich films are, that it can also be a two-way dialogue," she said.

"And that ‘something’ is what really makes me want to make that [particular] film all the time, because I'm not trying to [impose my viewpoint]. Rather, I want to hear from the audience. [...] creating a space for us to talk."

Surprise entry

Monica created Dear To Me as her final project for a master in film directing at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Potsdam, Germany.

"At first, I wanted to make a [full-length] feature film. But my producer in Indonesia, Astrid [Saerong], said, 'Mon, why don't we make a short film first, because the budget is only enough for a short film'," recounted the 30-year-old filmmaker. She said it was a challenge to cut down her original idea from a 90-minute runtime to just 19 minutes.

The team rewrote the script and in February 2019, Monica flew back to Indonesia with producer Felix Schwegler, cinematographer Jonas Römmig and gaffer Leo Schmidt. They shot the film over five days at Manuk Island Beach in Lebak regency, Banten, along the southwestern coast of Java.

“We mostly collaborated with UMN [Nusantara Multimedia University], my alma mater," said Monica.

Longing: Dear To Me narrates the story of Tim, a queer youth, who is struggling with his desire. (Courtesy of Monica Vanesa Tedja) (Personal archive/Courtesy of Monica Vanesa Tedja)

The production schedule just managed to avoid the pandemic and the ensuing travel restrictions. "A week after I returned to Berlin in March, Germany immediately went into lockdown. So we were really lucky to be able to shoot because otherwise, I wouldn't have graduated."

After a month in postproduction, she submitted Dear To Me as her final master’s project. Monice never submitted her short film to any film festival, so she was surprised when it won the Michael Ballhaus Prize for outstanding cinematography and was nominated for Best Short and Animation Film at this year’s First Steps Award.

"The First Steps Award is an award for new talents in the regions of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. At first, their focus was only on films by film school students, but now they’ve opened up to any new talents," said Monica.

Monica had actually planned to submit Dear To Me to the First Steps Award, but before she could, “the committee contacted my campus to scout the new talents [...] and the administration sent them the link”. The award committee watched her film, and accepted it as an entry.

A similar story is behind the film’s screening in the Open Doors: Shorts program at the Locarno Film Festival. The program was launched 19 years ago and since 2019, it has focused on the movie scene in Southeast Asia and Mongolia.

"I actually asked the people of Locarno, 'How did you discover this film?', because I didn't submit it to them," said Monica.

"Apparently, there is a hub for producers and directors from [participating] countries to pitch their projects [for Open Doors]. Gugi, my producer, signed up for the program and added the link to Dear To Me,” she said referring to Gugi Gumilang, the executive director of In-Docs who is producing her upcoming feature film.

In addition to screening her film, Locarno invited Monica's team to a workshop with producers from the featured countries.

"It was a really memorable experience because the filmmakers from those countries had the same struggle in not getting support from the government,” she said, recalling that she felt a “synergy” with the workshop participants.

Personal takes

Although social media users raved about the LGBT representation in Dear To Me, Monica did not intend it to be a niche film.

"Personally, it is not only about sexual identity, but I actually wanted to talk about the feeling [of longing]. It's something that we all have [experienced],” she said.

Necessary conversation: Monica admitted that the dialogue on the causes she advocates remains unspoken within her own family. (Courtesy of Monica Vanesa Tedja) (Personal archive/Courtesy of Monica Vanesa Tedja)

Monica added that this was not necessarily restricted to longing for a person, and that the object of longing could also be “something that we wish to have in life but it can’t come true for one reason or another [due to] external factors, like religion or parents."

Monica's films seem to share a common thread in exploring issues of sexuality as the elephant in the room. Her previous work includes 2015's Lebah dan Nektar (The Flower and the Bee) about sex education in Indonesia, which won the Jury’s Special Mention for short film in the comedy/drama category at the XXI Short Film Festival 2016 in Jakarta.

According to Monica, sexuality is a very natural thing, yet it constantly clashes with religion.

"I myself [come from] a very religious family, so it seems that it indirectly affects the way I think,” she said.

"[While I do] believe that religious institutions should play an important role in human life, I also believe that they have become overly intrusive. Hence, these small protests," said Monica while also referring to Sleep Tight, Maria, a short film she made in 2015 that explores sexuality and social mores through its protagonist, a teenaged girl with a strict Catholic upbringing.

Monica's family has been supportive of her career, but she added: "Surprisingly funny [that] they never specifically talk about the themes that I raise in my films."

One viewer, Anjani, a 25-year-old employee at an education technology company in Jakarta, was also reluctant to discuss the theme of Dear To Me.

"The cinematography is well-planned, the music is beautiful, so I like it a lot. But I don't really enjoy the [LGBT theme]," she said. "Not because I don't like it, but it doesn't feel relatable to me."

Monica can understand how relatability could be an obstacle to continuing the conversation, and plans to produce the full-length version of Dear To Me to expose its broader message.

"I think Chinese-Indonesian families, or Asian families in general, don't talk about things directly,” said Monica, who is of Chinese descent.

“The way we convey affection is not literal, so this is what I also want to portray [in my next film], how a space for discussion has actually been created but is not lived."

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