Sanubari Jakarta features ten tales of LGBT life in Indonesia
Sanubari Jakarta (‘Jakarta Deep Down’), a collection of stories about LGBT lives in the capital of Indonesia, was released in cinemas yesterday.
The film was made by a collective of ten directors with support from the Kresna Duta Foundation (an independent film funders), LGBT center the Ardhanary Institute and the Ford Foundation, who provide grants to aid social change around the world. Each of the ten directors funded their own sections with budgets from 4.5 million to 50 million (Indonesian Rupiah, $490, €373 to $5,461, €4,147). The foundations funded the post-production.
The stories cover different aspects of LGBT life in Jakarta, from a dark tale of transgender sex workers to a comic vignette about gay teenagers trying to find time alone.
One section is shot in black and white by director Adriyanto ‘Adri’ Waskito Dewo. He told The Jakarta Globe that he chose to work without color as a metaphor for a world where gay people can’t live openly. ‘It symbolizes the hope for change in the LGBT community,’ he said.
Each director devised the plot of their film themselves but to give the full-length film cohesion producers Fira Sofiana and former actress Lola Amaria assigned script writer Lele Laila to write the dialogue throughout the film.
Actress Dinda Kanyadewi who stars in the film said: ‘I have never portrayed this kind of sexual orientation before. This was a challenge for me. It’s up to the viewers to form their own opinions. I can only say that by watching this film, they may know there truly is a community like this. And we cannot simply close our eyes.’
In February Gay Star News reported on Children of Srikandi, a film about lesbian women in Indonesia but that film didn’t get a national cinema release. The release of Sanubari Jakarta into mainstream cinemas is significant in a country that has had it’s LGBT film festival, Q! Film Festival, disrupted by the Islamic Defenders Front for the past two years, with the venue violently attacked in 2010.
by Anna Leach
Source – Gay Star News
