I have to say for the record that I am very impressed with the burgeoning documentary film scene in Indonesia. Yes, cinetrons (Indonesian soap operas) and vaudeville talk shows still dominate the airwaves, but there is a generation of impassioned young folks who are eager to document all facets of Indonesian life—the good and the bad. As Indonesia is a country with over 17,000 islands spanning three time zones and a troubled history largely suppressed by a 30-year dictatorship, they’ve got an incredible wealth of material to draw upon.
Arfan Sabran, an extraordinarily talented documentary filmmaker I befriended early on, invited me to speak at a traveling documentary film festival/workshop put on by In-Docs. I agreed and was delighted to encounter a room full of young documentary lovers. I showed a brief trailer of my film and with the translation skills of esteemed film producer Chandra Tanzil facilitated a talk on how to define “documentary film.” Not an easy topic, I might add, but one which the attendees tackled with gusto. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more incredible documentary films emerge from Indonesia in the next decade.
