6 minute read
Building Plural Market Documentary Film
Promo poster of Balada - Yuda Kurniawan
After watching the documentary of Pesantren (Shalahuddin Siregar) at the opening of the Madani Film Festival, 27/11/2022, I asked the producer, Suryani Lauw, when this film would be shown in theaters. Suryani answered unsurely, I have no idea. Later, said Suryani, we will have a chat with Udin (the director’s nickname). Then Suryani said a closing statement, after all, this film has just joined Lola Amaria, later she will take care of the distribution.
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Promo poster of the Nyanyian Akar Rumput film - Yuda Kurniawan
Film Pesantren is a compelling documentary on the subject of Pesantren Kebon Jambu, Cirebon, led by “Nyi” Masriyah Amva. Like in the Negeri di Bawah Kabut, Shalahuddin’s work which
I consider one of the best Indonesian
films of all time, used the observational
documentary approach that emerged in the post-Reformation 1998 period. Films like The Flaneurs #3 (Aryo Danusiri), Denok & Gareng (Dwi Sujanti Nugraheni), and You and I (Fanny Chotimah) are noted to use the same approach and receive attention when they were broadcasted on the Online Cinema platform.
As a genre, observational documentary is characterized by the elimination of voice-overs, interviews, and minimizing awareness of the existence of a camera
in recording the subject’s behavior. This genre emerges as part of the growing of documentary film culture after Reformation, as stated by Eric Sasono in his thesis, Publicness and the Public in Contemporary Indonesian Documentary Film Culture (2019).
Eric explains that there are three important actors in the growth of documentary film culture after reformation, namely In-Docs, the Yogyakarta Documentary Film Festival, and production houses specially for documentary, Watchdoc. Those three pioneers have something in common, namely attention to publicness in the form of awareness to engage with the public. In-Docs (2002) focuses on improving the quality of documentary films in Indonesia through various capacity building programs for prospective documentary filmmakers in the form of screenings at local film festivals, to workshops to adequate or strong documentary filmmakers. This non-profit organization was born from the womb of JIFFEST (Jakarta International Film Festival) (19992014).
Eric notes that JIFFEST is very instrumental in creating a new film culture in Indonesia after reformation;
playing documentary films, local or international, in theaters. JIFFEST initially held a special screening program for documentaries under the name House of
One of the scenes in the
Nyanyian Akar Rumput film - Yuda Kurniawan
Doc. During the New Order era, almost all documentary films were played on television and until the 1990s TVRI was
the only television station in Indonesia.
Then, in the 1990s, alternative screenings were developed. At that time, the media were no longer alone because some private television stations emerged, although almost all of them were owned by the children and relatives of Soeharto, the military-president who had been in power for 30 years. Anak Seribu Pulau series (supervised by Garin Nugroho and Mira Lesmana) was played on a private TV station. Previously, Garin was considered to have made a breakthrough when making Air dan Romi (1991). Budi Irawanto, researcher and founder of the
Jogjakarta Asian Film Festival (JAFF) which is also the most important platform for cinema culture after JIFFEST, as quoted by Eric, called this film a pioneer of the antiaesthetics of the New Order.
David Hanan (film researcher) said that this short film deviated from the norm
by highlighting the very poor living
conditions of the three subjects and the villages-cities where they ate, bathed, and washed clothes from river water
full of garbage in Jakarta. This film also eliminated the voice-over narration
and became one of the pioneers of observational documentary.
However, what escapes from Hanan’s analysis is that this film is a project of the Goethe Institute; one of the predecessors of a production pattern with funds from donor institutions in Indonesia which are usually international and channeled through local or international NGOs. Garin developed this production pattern by establishing the SET Foundation. In Jogja, there is also the Kampung Halaman collective, which makes film-making as a social movement action for the residents
of villages in Java.
This pattern of production leads to the opening of alternative playing spaces for documentary films: culture and art centers such as Goethe, Erasmus Huis, Kineklub TIM (1970), and Teater Utan Kayu (1990s). These public spaces were the ones which played the film Dongeng Kancil untuk Kemerdekaan (Garin Nugroho, 1995) for the art public in Jakarta.
There is one more aspect of Air dan Romi, namely when the secret service tried to ban and destroyed the original film which were considered dangerous because it displayed a “bad” face of Jakarta and slandered the authorities. Censorship and state pressure colored the creative world in Indonesia, including hindering the growth of documentaries that were “serious” and not merely educational or propaganda.
After reformation, censorship shifted from the state (via LSF (Film Censorship Institution) to mass organizations. Fiction films had been protested by mass organizations several times, asking to remove the films from circulation.
In the film Balada Bala Sinema (Yuda Kurniawan, 2017), the Pemuda Pancasila organization is depicted bringing the people into action against the screening of a documentary film made by a local
One of the scenes
in the Balada
- Yuda Kurniawan
high school student. The reason? Because the subject is about the former PKI.
Salahuddin’s reluctance to distribute his
films in theaters was due to his refusal to
get permission to pass censorship from LSF (Film Censorship Institution) as a condition for showing the film in theaters in Indonesia. Salahuddin is based
not only on aesthetics, but on ethics. Unfortunately, the film becomes difficult to meet the public who often identify “watching a film” with “watching at the cinema”. Meanwhile, Yuda Kurniawan
chose the other path. His second film, Nyanyian Akar Rumput, which raised a vulnerable subject, namely children and the poems of Wijhi Tukul, a poet who was eliminated by the New Order, was shown in theaters.
Since 1998, there have been several
documentaries that have been shown in commercial theaters outside of festivals
or outside alternative cinemas such as Kineforum-DKJ, namely several Tino Saronggalo’s films, Jalanan (Daniel Ziv, 2013), and Banda, The Dark Forgotten Trail (Jay Subiakto ; shown on Netflix). Previously, Abduh also collaborated with Nia Dinata, producing an omnibus documentary with a theme about women, At Stake/Pertaruhan (2008).
The main problem in building a market for Indonesian documentaries in
commercial cinema networks, apart from the issue of censorship, is that our cinema exhibition and distribution infrastructure is designed for a singular market and not a plural market so that there is a struggle for allotted shows in cinemas. Commercial films and
alternative documentary films compete freely on the same ground. Nyanyian Akar Rumput has to compete with the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
Plural markets are barely developed, except for a small number of alternative cinemas such as Kineforum, cultural
centers, or community initiative spaces.
After two years of the pandemic, hopes depend on digital-online platforms, such as Youtube, as an alternative broadcast channel. Watchdoc “success” brought The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer) from the Youtube channel to the community room as a social movement to watch together throughout Indonesia.
Out of Watchdoc, most documentary filmmakers’ market space is still limited in OTT (Vidsee is the main choice), the official platform of the Ministry of Education and Culture (TV Indonesiana and Budaya Saya channel). At best, documentary films can try the path of international film festivals. Domestically, in fact, the cinema/theater market is not
widely available for documentary films. So far.
