In 2021, we decided to organize the A R KIPEL Twilight Zone – 8 th Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival. We decided to hold a hybrid festiva l by combining online and off line screening. The main cha llenge in organizing an online festiva l is to conquer digita l media technolog y so it can provide convenience to the audience in watching the f ilms in our festiva l. A nother cha llenge is the securit y issue in which many f ilms on the online video streaming platforms are still prone to easy downloads. Of course, the next cha llenge is to build trust in f ilmma kers. Not a ll f ilmma kers agree to screen their works online, with securit y concerns as the main reason. So, we are tr ying to f ind a platform that we consider the safest to ensure that the works screened on A R KIPEL are not easily downloaded. To maintain the ‘festiva l’ spirit as a meeting space, we continue to hold the festiva l off line on a ver y limited basis. The space we used is the cinema room at Forum Lenteng—a room we just f inished building in the last few months. This limited off line event may be able to maintain the festiva l’s spirit as a building that maintains relationships with fellow audiences as well as experimenta l and documentar y f ilm enthusiasts in Ja kar ta. At this year’s event, we raise Twilight Zone as our theme, and we have decided on it since 2019 for the 2020 festiva l. We decided not to look for a new theme for the 2021 festiva l because Twilight Zone f its the situation we are facing now. Twilight Zone is a zone we can’t predict. It can be ver y dark, gray, shiny, or a light. No one could have g uessed what happened in the dark of the situation. This t wilight is a big cha llenge in seeing the socio-cultura l, socio-politica l issues of the region, which are inter t wined with the spaces that surround it. Cinema in this case has an aper ture to enter and interpret the ‘vag ueness’ of the situation. Since 2020, we have selected f ilms in the Internationa l Competition session that are in accordance with the theme that we offer to the applicants. If we refer to the selections of the selectors who are a lso programmers in this competition session, it is ver y clear that the themes raised in these f ilms are still relevant to our current uncer tain situation. There are works that raise historica l f indings that are still in the dark, but they give us space for interpretation of how histor y can relate to how our lives today began. Likewise, works that present optica l wonder in cinema, where the truth of rea lit y can change in the capture of camera and sound. Even though they are ver y forma list, these kinds of works still provide a limitless aesthetic exploration experience in cinema. As in previous years, there are many works that raise the themes of f ights and the struggle for space of power, both in the context of ‘power’ or imaginar y space in the relationships with other societies. It is unnecessar y to interpret these f ights negatively because it can be a ver y ‘conceptua l’ f ight space in seeing cinema’s cleverness to frame the rea l problems in contemporar y societ y.
24
