The Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival (UWRF)
was established 14 years ago by Ubud resident, Melbourne-born Janet de Neefe, with
considerable support from the Balinese community in Ubud, and from the
intellectual community in Indonesia generally. The UWRF is now a formidable
annual event, which, in addition to numerous seminars, panel discussions and
workshops covering recent writing, now
includes a film component, with film screenings—mainly of recent Indonesian documentaries,
features and short films—together with Q and A panels, and forums on both media
and film issues, and some special presentations and launches. The festival
brings together creative people both from abroad and from within this complex, diverse
and surprising society that is Indonesia.
2017 was no exception, and four of the films
shown at this 5 day event (25-29 October) were of particular interest. Their
significance arises particularly given the way they engage with recent ethnic-politico-religious
developments in Indonesia, where, now, not only has the (until recently) very popular
Chinese Governor of Jakarta, Ahok, been imprisoned for two years for blasphemy,
but his conviction has set precedents that could strengthen the blasphemy law—and
where there is increasing persecution by the police of the gay community. While homosexuality is not
criminalised in Indonesia, over the last year homosexuals in gay saunas in both
Jakarta and Surabaya have been arrested by police using pornography laws as the
legal basis for the arrests.
Calalai:
In Betweenness is a film about gender diversity
among the Bugis in South Sulawesi, where at least five genders are
acknowledged. In traditional Bugis thinking, in
addition to there being men and women, there are also calalai (literally ‘false men’), anatomical
females, who in some regards behave like men, and may have female partners; calabai (literally ‘ false women’), anatomical males, often with male
partners and to varying degrees playing female roles; and bissu (androgynous priests or shamans). Bugis society is a
predominantly Muslim society. But sexuality among the Bugis is seen as fluid, without
rigid differentiation between genders. Rather, genders are seen as existing
along a spectrum. These fluid categories are accepted as a Bugis cultural
tradition by the society as a whole, even though actually practiced by only a
few. In some Bugis communities at least two of these transgender groups (bissu and calabai) have a ceremonial role, though with some bissu becoming calabai in their daily work lives. (For more information about
these Bugis traditions, see the excellent books by French anthropologist, Christian
Pelras, and by Australian-born, New Zealand–based anthropologist, Sharyn Graham
Davies).
Calalai:
In Betweenness was made by a group of Indonesian queer,
feminist filmmakers. As was claimed by
one of the film’s scriptwriters during the Q and A session after the festival
screening, the film was intentionally produced as a contribution to the debate
about gender in Indonesia, the aim being to provide support (or “push back” – a
commonly used term at the Ubud Writers’ Festival) for acceptance of gender
diversity in Indonesia as a whole, at a time of increasing repression in a
hitherto largely tolerant society. This repression appears to be connected to
the growing Islamisation of the society, a phenomenon more markedly occurring in
the last twenty five or so years. This recent Islamisation is partly due to the
missionary efforts in Indonesia of numerous Muslim preachers from Saudi Arabia,
and their growing influence since the mid-1980s. The structure, content and
mode of address of the film Calalai: In
Betweenness is a conservative style
of anthropological documentary. At the same time the film contain some advocacy
elements, and also shows the high status of some of these transgender people,
and their own documentation of their traditions. While the film addresses
issues of gender, it does not engage very much with the sexual practices of its
subjects, largely due, I would think, to wariness of Indonesian censorship.
In contrast, the aptly titled
fiction-documentary, hUSh, is a film
about the sexual experiences, and sexual fortunes and misfortunes of a Jakarta
night club singer, Cinta Ramlan. hUSh
was written, produced and directed by the very engaged Indonesian novelist,
short story writer and independent filmmaker (and award winning occasional
actress), Djenar Maesa Ayu, together with Singapore filmmaker, Kan Lumé. The
film’s title is apt because while the film’s topic is one that might only be
broached in hushed terms, it applies potentially to US all. The film begins
with its main character affirming that while in Indonesia men can get away with
a lot sexually, a woman is not expected to have a sex life. The film takes the
form of “to the camera narration” by its subject, Cinta Ramlan, of her experiences, as though in interview but
without an interviewer present, and with illustrative and contextual cutaways.
Topics include her own experiences of child abuse, rape, an unwanted pregnancy
and a subsequent abortion, triangular sex, experimentation with drugs followed
by a time in prison, her candid views on men, and on when she will want to have
sex with a man.
The film has not been shown in cinemas, but
has been screened for the Indonesian film community, for example in December
2016 at the innovative Jogja Netpac Asian Film Festival, as well as at UWRF
2017. It will shortly go to the
Singapore International Film Festival, and to the Salamindanaw Asian Film
Festival in the Philippines. The film might be described as fiction-documentary,
because only some of the experiences described were personally experienced by
its narrator-subject, Cinta Ramlan, and other experiences have been scripted to
fill out the picture of a whole range of possible negative experiences a woman
may have. Co-director, Kan Lumé, has told me
there was a compact between himself, Djenar and Cinta Ramlan to not disclose
which experiences described in the film had been personally experienced by
Cinta Ramlan, and which had not. Cinta agreed to narrate and appear to own the
whole range of experiences (some negative, others regarded askance by the
society) because she believed the topic (and
the film’s approach to it) was important, and so she was deeply committed to
the project.
Poster for hUSh |
Co-Writer-director, Djenar Maesa Ayu, was
first known via her short stories, many of which dealt with issues such as
child abuse and subsequent trauma. It may be of interest to know that Djenar is
the daughter (by his second wife, actress Tuti Kirana) of Moscow-trained,
Indonesian writer-director, Sjuman Djaya, one of the most innovative, socially
committed and brilliant directors of the 1970s and early 1980s. Djenar shares
much of her father’s concern for innovation and commitment to truth.
Djenar Maesa Ayu |
A third Indonesian film of great interest
screened at UWRF is Istirihatlah
Kata-Kata (literally ‘Take a Rest, Words’, but also known as Solo Solitude), a 97minute feature about
the disappearance—towards the end of the Suharto regime—of the Javanese-born poet
and political activist, Wiji Thukul. The film was written and directed by
Javanese-born, Yosep Anggi Noen. Thukul was forced to go underground in mid-1996,
moving from place to place, after he became known as an activist working
against Suharto. The film shows him hiding out in West Kalimantan, but his
whereabouts are largely unknown after a visit to his wife and children in Solo
in early 1998 (with which the film concludes) and a possible sighting of him in
a demonstration in Jakarta in April 1998,
shortly before Suharto was forced to step down as president.
It is believed Wiji Thukul was kidnapped
and murdered by elements in the army still loyal to the Suharto regime, a fate
suffered by some other activists. The
film traces this mysterious odyssey, critiquing the iniquitous state repression
that was so strong under the thirty year Suharto New Order regime, and which
could, perhaps, even return, depending on political circumstances. But it also
celebrates Thukul’s political poetry, which is quoted or sung at times during
the film. This is both a very political film and an art film. But it has been
screened commercially in the Cineplex 21
Group chain of cinemas, the largest chain of cinemas in Indonesia, initially
established more than 30 years ago by Suharto’s half brother, Sudwikatmono. I first
saw the film at a Cinema 21 venue near Kuta in Bali, where it ran for at least
a week and possibly slightly longer, earlier this year.
The film has been screened already in
Australia at screenings organised by the Indonesian community. Its invitation
to UWRF shows the festival’s continuing commitment to openness about issues of
state repression, even though in 2015 the Ubud Writers’ Festival found itself forced to cancel (as a result of
pressure from local authorities) some of its events, including three panel
discussions, a film screening (of Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look
of Silence), and two book launches, all programmed in commemoration of the fiftieth
anniversary of the post-30 September 1965 massacres of communists and others, mass
killings that were largely a consequence of General Suharto’s drive to gain
control over Indonesian society, with some American aid, in a Cold War
anti-communist context.
Wiji Thukul ‘underground’ in West Kalimantan, in Istirihatlah Kata-Kata |
Of related interest
in the Indonesian film world at the moment is the lobbying going on in public
statements made in early October, and subsequently, by influential figures in
Indonesia, as to whether the thirty three years old, four hour, Suharto government-produced
propaganda film about the killings of six generals in Jakarta in 1965 (killings
that were seen to justify the subsequent massacres)—Pengkhianatan G30S PKI (1984) (‘The Treachery of the Indonesian
Communist Party in the 30th September Movement’), a film which was
compulsory viewing at schools in the second half of the Suharto New Order
period—should be screened widely again. The head of the army, General Gatot
Nurmantyo, who, it is reported, hopes to enter politics on his retirement next
year, has asserted the continuing relevance of the film as a warning against
the return of communism to Indonesia (unlikely), and has called for mass public
screenings of the film.
Although not yet backed by any political
party, there is speculation that Gatot might aim to be a running mate with one
of the presidential candidates in the 2019 elections, if not as Vice-President
to (current President) Joko Widodo, then perhaps with would-be presidential
candidate and Suharto son-in-law, former general, Prabowo Subianto. Not only
has Gatot raised the spectre of communism, but he was recently criticised in an
editorial in the influential Indonesian weekly, Tempo, for currying favour with Islamic radicals, by wearing a
white peci (Islamic hat) conjointly
with his army uniform at the second huge anti-Ahok demonstration late last year
(see editorial, Tempo, 8 October,
2017). On the other hand, Tempo shortly afterwards (October 15
edition) featured an interview with the Minister for Education and Culture in
the Jokowi government, Muhadjir Effendy,
in which he asserted that the film Pengkhianatan
G30S PKI should not be viewed by anyone under 13 or even by those still in
middle school, because it contains so much violence, and is a film that can incite
hatred.
Finally, on a different but also important
note, is As Worlds Divide, a film
produced and directed by Australian, Rob Henry, on the traditional culture and social predicament of tribes-people living
inland on Siberut, one of the Mentawai islands off the coast of West Sumatra.
In 2008 Henry left Australia in search of something more enriching than, as he
says, the drabness and routineness of daily work in Melbourne at a time of a
world wide economic crisis, going
initially to the Mentawai Islands where he was to earn a living for a time as a
cameraman filming activities of tourists on surfing holidays. But he soon found
himself drawn to the local people, moving within a few months to live with (and
learn the language from) a group of locals on a coconut plantation on an
isolated island. This population of local people were trying to eke out a
living tapping local resources, rather than continuing to live—as most of the
population of the Mentawai islands now do—on
a government settlement, where children go to school and are educated
into the modern Indonesian world, but where unemployment is rife, where they are
not educated into their former culture, and where they are not supported by the
modern cash economy.
Attracted by intimations of an even richer
life lived by the few hundred remaining tribes-people living inland, he trekked
to their villages and was welcomed there, living with them for a time and being
inducted in some depth into their lives and traditions. Henry came to realize
that the fact that these people could sustain themselves without being
dependent on a modern cash economy, was just one reason among many why this
culture and way of life should be preserved, and its people not moved from
their land by the demands of government policies linked almost certainly to the
interests of encroaching, internationally-based logging companies. This film
addresses many issues ignored by modern civilisation. Henry joins forces with a
small number of Mentawai educated on the
mainland, who were establishing a foundation to preserve this culture and its
rich and unique kinds of knowledge. As
Worlds Divide is one of the results of the efforts of this foundation.
Three people from the inland village were guests of the UWRF and spoke via a
translator, with enthusiasm, indeed at times with great passion, to the
assembled audience. Information about As
Worlds Divide, and screenings of it, can be accessed at the following site:
if you click here
Mentawai
tribes-people, with Australian, Rob Henry, at the Q and A after the screening
of As Worlds Divide at the Ubud
Writers’ and Readers’ Festival
All four films discussed above can be seen
as part of a “push back” against increasingly dominant forces and attitudes in
Indonesia, some of them global, some of them specific to Indonesia and to an
increasingly less tolerant Muslim world. The selection of these films also
reflects the spirit of quite a few of the
more political panel discussions held at the Ubud Writers’ and Readers’
Festival in 2017.
David Hanan
Biographical
Note
David Hanan has recently published (with
Palgrave Macmillan) the highly praised Cultural
Specificity in Indonesian Film: Diversity in Unity. He was recently a guest
speaker at the Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival in Bali, from where he now
reports on some key films screened at the Festival. For more information about
his book, click here
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