The Film makers
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Director
NIA DINATA
Chant From A Village |
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Nia Dinata is one of the few pioneer young
filmmakers that contribute to the revival of Indonesian
cinema after the reform era. Two of her last
films Arisan! (The Gathering) and Berbagi Suami
(Love for Share), |
brought controversies and much
discussions about homosexuality and polygamy
in Indonesia. Director, producer and
script doctor are her
posts in this film. While
meddling with this
project, she has her
other hand on another
film project.
Filmography: Ca Bau
Kan, Biola Tak Berdawai
(producer), Arisan!, Joni's
Promise(producer),
Love For Share, Long
Road to Heaven
(producer)
At the beginning of the production, as director and also producer of this anthology project, I did not want to think about which story I want to direct. The tasks of a producer took lot of time already; therefore as producer, I let other three directors choose their stories.
When finally we had to decide upon the Chant From A Village and Chant From An Island, which one would be directed by Fatimah and which one would be directed by me. As a Sundanese, I expressed my comfort on the story Chant From A Village in which the characters speak Sundanese. On the other hand, the character of Esi as janitor in a dangdut karaoke club had stolen my attention.
In reality, it is very common that we come across the character of a janitor like Esi, whether it’s in the malls, cinemas or other places. I myself often think that when we come to these places to have fun, these women who work as janitors, clean the closet that we use… they patiently wait behind the doors of the toilet. Behind what we see at the surface, their life has stories that must be very interesting with all its conflicts, hard works and battles.
Esi, like ourselves, is working hard for her daughter. She wants her daughter to get good education. Like many of us, Esi is unfortunate in her love life that she lives with her boyfriend who harasses her daughter sexually. One factor in the vicious cycle of violent is the expert tactic of the men to ask for forgiveness and to convince the woman to get back together. Esi experiences the same situation although she has a strong best friend who becomes her guardian angel for a while.
On the other hand, the daughter’s mind is already contaminated by the belief that a woman’s position depends on how much money she has. The daughter then has the ambition to upgrade her economic condition no matter what. This is where the plotting of the film turns into a tragedy of women trafficking. When women are seduced by the comfort of money, many women do not bother to look beyond what really lies behind those promises.
We cannot deny the fact that many child trafficking involve the agreement between the parents and the trafficker. The agreement is finally done because of the severe economic pressure where the parents cannot seem to have another solution. But Esi is a strong mother who doesn’t want to surrender to the condition. With all her limitations, she tries her best to keep her daughter close to her. Whether Esi is going to succeed or fail, is not only depends on Esi’s own wish, it also depends on the mental readiness of the child to face the social environment, to face the child traffickers who will never stop trying.
Most of the setting was done at night in the dangdut karaoke club where Esi works. I decided not to make a glamorous lighting because the limited lighting is the real condition of the dangdut clubs around the area of Bogor and Cibinong. The clubs are dark with the down mood, without any air conditioning and everybody can smell the odor of the sweats from the customers who are mostly truckers or hard laborers. I want to be loyal to the real setting. The costume of the singers is of course hilarious because it is their asset to get tips. I want the audience of the film to feel the dark, crowded, down mood… feel the narrow toilet and the sweat of the club’s loyal customers. |
UPI
Chant From A Tourist Town
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Born Sartri Dania Sulfiati, she insists on only Upi
on the credit title, since hardly anyone ever gets
her name correctly. She has been known as a
writer of several Indonesian blockbuster films
post reform era. |
In 2004, her directing debuted
with a romantic comedy Looking for Love in 30
Days. Upi entitles her alias for directing Realita,
Cinta dan Rock n Roll, her second feature in 2006
and her rock n rollish pose. She got a rave
reviews from critics all
over the country for
her bold and positive
portrayal of the transsexual
character in the
film. Upi is a mother of
6 years old Farrel.
Filmography: Looking
for Love in 30 Days,
Reality, Love and Rock
n Roll, Chocolate and
Strawberry (producer, writer).
When Nia Dinata asked me to direct one segment in this collective work of four women directors, I had this doubt because first of all my film style is different from the films produced by Kalyana Shira Films. Second, I never directed a film which script was not mine. But after Nia convinced me that as the director, I can develop the script together with the scriptwriter and producer, and I’m free to explore my own style in adapting the script visually, I finally decided to be on board.
What intrigues me about this project is the issue on women. It is interesting because I never make a film with the focus on women issues. In the beginning, all directors had to read the four synopses without telling which story we want to pick. We then gathered to give inputs and watched the video on the topic that had been researched by Kalyana Shira Films. The basic story then became more enriched and accountable. What we want to present here, is the real conditions in which some women experiences with all the background and conflicts.
From the discussions we could see who understands more about the conflicts of each story. Among the four stories, there is one story about teenagers. The team thought that I am definitely the one who is meant to be the director of that story. Maybe because my previous films always presented the issues on younger generation (even though I’m not that young anymore).
And so it goes… I direct the Chant From A Tourist Town segment, a story about high school students in Jogja. The story is about free sex among teenagers from the point of view of Safina, the high school girl.
Actually, free sex is neither a new nor a strange phenomenon in this world, including in Indonesia. Why we choose Jogja? Because we want to inform people that this phenomenon is not only happening in a metropolitan city like Jakarta that’s usually identical to such free lifestyle and seems far away from the culture of the “east.” We want to underline that the phenomenon is also happening in other small cities, where people think that the root of tradition or religion seems strong. It is important to present this story because it is time for us all to open our eyes to see this bitter reality.
When I agree to direct the story, I told the team that I don’t want to make a movie that only talks about what we see on the surface of this phenomenon. I want to visualize it as real as possible because that is the purpose of the movie. I am aware that talking about sexuality in Indonesia is always considered as taboo… that we cannot discuss openly about it, that we cannot visualize it. But I want to visualize it for people to know that many teenagers are lost, and if they are lost, it can destroy their future. We cannot just ignore that the availability of information is unlimited and easily accessed anywhere. We can easily find porn movies on the street, or download it from cheap internet café, or simply get it through mobile phones.
The movie is made with a semi-documentary style for the audience to feel the reality. I want all aspects such as the acts, the shots, and the art to be done as natural as possible. The look of the film is rough; far away from a beauty setting.
The character of Safina represents the situation of a teenage girl in the period of finding her existence, exploring her sexuality versus the opposite gender. This is a fragile phase for teenagers; therefore they need to get the right information and the support from her social environment. Safina grows up in an environment where experimenting sex is common thing. In general, girls like Safina have sex in their early age not because of their own choice but because of peer pressure. Safina is trapped in a position where she thinks that virginity is important but her believe alienates her from her friends. She wants to proof that the choice should come from herself.
This movie would like to show that sex education is not only a poster of testis and ovary, a poster that only shows the function of reproduction. Sex education is deeper than that. It has to be open and a parent like myself has to start with a question like “What if my child is having sex?” Parents have to guide them and make them understand that it is a choice that teenagers have to make with full of consciousness and responsibility. Parents have to explain all the consequences and it is important to educate them about safe sex. I’m not supporting free sex but anticipation is important to prevent pregnancy before marriage, illegal abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases.
I am fully aware of peer pressure on teenagers to have sex. It is already common thing and we’d better not be hypocrite. But it is important that when a girl decides to have sex, it has to be her own conscious and responsible decision. It should not be because of pressure from others. Teenagers, especially girls should really understand the consequences of sex, especially the negative consequences. Because in reality, the girls suffer more than the boys. |
LASJA FAUZIA
Chant From The Capital City
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Tottering her seventh month baby belly while
directing in this project, she looks anything but
burdened. She was very relaxed despite the
nervous and sometimes overly cautious crew. |
During the directors’ photo session recently, she
still managed to do a photo shoot on the 6th
floor building sans elevator. Lasja started her
career in film by assisting some of the prolific
Indonesian directors. She made countless
music videos for
Indonesian great
musicians. Her career
started as a feature
film director in 2005,
with a romantic
comedy, Lovely Luna.
Lasja is a mother of
3 years old Kenar
and her newborn
baby girl.
Filmography: Lovely Luna, Missing
Opportunity(short film), Their World, Not an
Ordinary Star
When Kalyana Shira Films proposed this collective project, I was pregnant. The plan was to shoot the film when my pregnancy was about 4-5 months, but in reality, the shooting was done when my pregnancy was about 8 months. Nevertheless, I went on with the project because it is too good to be missed.
I directed Chant From The Capital City by the consideration of my fellow directors in this project, simply because I was in my late pregnancy. If something happened, the access to hospital was easy. It could have been a different story otherwise. But actually, since the very beginning I am interested to the character of Laksmi. Chant From The Capital City is a very strong story that absorbs my personal empathy because it talks about a woman condition as a mother. Laksmi is of Chinese descendant who got HIV from her late husband. With her condition, she has to defend herself from being separated with her only child Belinda. Her mother in-law who never likes her, wants to take Belinda away from her because of her disease.
Making this movie is a personal journey for me… not because of my old pregnancy, since there are many women who are pregnant and still working in the farm, in the traditional market… It is more because I am also a mother and I know deeply about the strong bonding between a mother and her children. No mother wants to be separated from her children. Filming a story about a woman like Laksmi with all her decisions based on protecting her child is not an opportunity I want to pass. My own experience as a mother and also my friends’ experiences become the reference for me to enrich the look and the mood of the film.
This is not a happy ending movie. Through this, we want to build the empathy of the society towards the people with HIV/AIDS. They are victims. They need help, not rejection. Separating a mother from her child is violent. It violates the rights of the mother and the children. If a mother should let her children away from her because of her disease, then a violent action had been done by the society who let that happen. |
Fatimah T. Rony
Chant From An Island
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Indonesian by blood and American by culture,
Fatimah is a film professor in UC Irvine. She's also
known as a visual anthropologist. She has made
five short films and juggles her time between
teaching |
and filmmaking. Two of her short films
got the Director’s Guild Student Awards and in
2000 her short film was also screened in Cannes
Film Festival. Chants of Lotus was her first exposure to working
with Indonesian film
workers and producers.
She is pursuing
to produce her debut
feature which will
take place in Sumatra.
Filmography: On
Cannibalism (editor),
Concrete River
(producer, writer,
editor), Demon Lover
(producer, writer,
editor), Everything In Between (producer, writer,
editor), Jarocho Elegua (producer, co-director,
writer), Perfect Girl (producer), Treasure (producer,
writer)
In my wildest dreams I would never imagine that someday I would sit around a table one rainy night in May as part of a team of four Indonesian women directors brainstorming about making a feature film about women. I looked at us and could not believe it. All of us were directors. And all of us were mothers. To top it off, the other three women – Nia, Upi, and Lasja – were impossibly beautiful and super talented.
I mean who needs Charlie when you’re already surrounded by Angels?
I first met Nia Dinata in Los Angeles in 2003 when we were both showing films at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival. I was blown away by her film “Arisan!” which, and this is typical of her work, was both full of artistry and integrity, but still entertaining. After coming to Indonesia several times, Nia invited me to become one of the directors in an omnibus film Chants of Lotus.
That I was offered a chance to be one of the directors of Chants of Lotus was such a gift. Vivian Idris and Melissa Karim wrote such a passionate and strong script. To be able to work with the best writers, actors (Rieke, Rachel, and Arswendy were terrific), producers, cinematography team, and the talented army of assistant directors, sound, production crew, team art, editors, music composers, PR… it was like a holiday for me every day. We shot on an island with no electricity (during the day) or fresh water, no cars, just pushing equipment around in carts, and the mostly young crew worked so hard that some of the manliest men would suffer from heat stroke. And there I was this crazy director urging everyone to carry on, I felt a little bit like Fitzcarraldo who wanted to take the boat over the Andes Mountains.
Chant From An Island is a true description on the daily life of Indonesian women: modest yet full of battle. Sumantri has to face her own health problem although she is a midwife who has to deal with her patients health issues which are not limited to pregnancy, birth, and mother and child health. She may only be a midwife with very limited medical facility in a small island, but her dedication and care are only for the betterment for the people in the island. She also cares a lot about Wulan, an autistic girl whom she loves like her own child. The story of Sumantri is the portrait of a very strong, loving, and dedicated woman who is ironically susceptible to illness. It is also a portrait of the reality of poor and uneducated society.
In my heart, I feel such great love for my homeland of Indonesia, and especially for all the great beautiful women on whose backs so many of us were given opportunities. Their sacrifice, like that of Sumantri, who was connected to the reality of life of most Indonesian women who struggle for their health and reproductive rights, will never be forgotten. |
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