Tomorrow it will start again: the (37th) International Film Festival of Rotterdam. It is one of the major festivals in Europe and even in the world. It distinguishes itself from those of Cannes, Venice and Berlin in that it aims at promoting the production of relevant and high quality movies, by independent directors.
This year no less then nine Indonesian movies will be shown in and out of competition. Among them are films by Edwin (”Trip to the wood” & “Hulahoop soundings”), Riri Riza ( “Thou shalt not wait” & “3 days to forever”) and Garin Nugrono (”Teak leaves at the temples”). The last one also directed “Opera Jawa”, which we saw recently and which I consider to be a small masterpiece.
Update: In the competition of full blown movies the audiences choose “Persepolis” as the winner. The Indonesian films “3 days to forever” and “Teak Leaves”finished 71st and 82nd out of a total number of 192. The Jury on the other hand choose as the “Tiger Awards: “Flower in he Pocket” (Malaysia), “Go with Peace” (Denmark) and “Wonderful Town” (Denmark).
Looks like I have something to do in the weekend!
Oh, you guys are SO lucky! I could only dream to have International Film Festival held in Aberdeen, let alone having Indonesian movies shown here…
Colson, it’s obvious you follow and know things about my country more than myself. Shame on me!
@pelopor: invite me for a match of chess and I’ll invite you to meet the top notch of artsy moviemakers (now I’m boasting).
@anita: come along, tell the awesome stories you lived through recently on both sides of the globe, and let’s party (well, the way an old stiff like me can party that is).
@santi d.: It’s me who should be ashamed – I’ve been surrounded almost all my life by people who looked, talked, smelled, ate, behaved and even thought like Indonesians – some of them even were. And it’s only now I’ve started to get to know a little about the (or at least one of the) most fascinating country (countries) in the world (although it should have the climate and political system of Scandinavian countries).
@cols: do you want to play chess coming saturday or sunday?
@peolopor: Saturday it will be. Chez moi. Food, drinks and moving pieces. I will grant you white.
Colson, I don’t agree with you about Indonesia having a climate like in the Scandinavian countries… but the political system is ok.
There would be Indonesian Movie festival in Budapest, 7-8 movies will be shown within a week from February 21st to 28th. I just distributed some brochures about it in school’s cafeteria, hope many people will come.
so cool. there were no indonesian films played in Tromso international film festival. instead, there was malaysian focus, they played 5 malaysian films. ah so annoying. malaysian films were so far beyond riri riza’s..though i dont like his tiga hari thing..but still it’s much better than the malaysian films played in TIFF.
good article, i believe it