Returning for a second year, Indonesia’s JAFF Future Project continues to position itself as a platform for early-stage projects from across Asia Pacific.
This year’s edition presents a line-up of 10 projects that will compete for $74,000 in cash and production support.
Running alongside the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF), the programme provides tailored development support and industry meetings for both fiction and documentary projects. Last year’s inaugural edition highlighted projects such as Pangku, the directorial debut of Indonesian actor Reza Rahadian, which went on to be selected for HAF Goes to Cannes at the Marché du Film and picked up four awards in Busan.
This year’s edition also marks the renewal of the initiative’s partnership with the Adelaide Film Festival through the AFF Festival Bridges programme, in continued efforts to strengthen ties between Australia and Asia.
Aluk (Australia-Indo)
Dir. Chris C.F.
Prods. Sam Hewison, Wahyu Al Mardhani
Prodcos. Dogmilk Films, cut by Dog
Budget: $221,000 (85% raised)
Filmed over seven years, this documentary follows three generations of a family in Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, one of the last places where indigenous faith Aluk To Dolo (the way of the ancestors) is still observed. As the impacts of migration, rapid social change, and the climate crisis permeate the village, the family quietly undergoes its own silent transformation. Marsel edges closer towards adolescence, while grandfather Ne’ Minda passes down the stories, rituals and wisdom at the roots of their lineage.
Shot predominantly on Steadicam, the pacing of the film is punctuated by the family’s daily lives, drifting through rice fields, bamboo groves and communal gatherings, all to form an immersive portrait of a family bound by their devotion to their land and legacy.
Both an ode to Ne’ Minda and his family and a meditation on a community in transition, Aluk marks Cochrane-Friedrich’s first solo feature after 2023’s A River In The Middle Of The Sky, a project developed during the pandemic, which he co-directed with Wahyu Al Mardhani.
Contact: Chris C.F., Dogmilk Films
Ghost Island (S Kor-Indo-Malay)
Dir. Park Kiyong
Prods. Park Kiyong, Ho Yuhang
Prodcos. b films, Paperheart
Budget: $1m
This mystery drama follows an Indonesian woman who travels to the South Korean island of Jeju in search of her missing husband. Aided by a local fixer, she uncovers clues that merely deepen the mystery: glitching videos, conflicting accounts and a cave in Jeju’s Gotjawal forest still haunted by the horrors of a 1948 massacre. Her investigation eventually leads her back to Bali, where she grapples with her own family’s role in the 1965 killings which eerily mirror the tragedies of Jeju, revealing a shared, unspoken grief between the two islands.
Morphing through dreams, rituals and fragments of time, the film unfolds as a spiritual detective story in which history surfaces not as a force of vengeance, but as a presence yearning to be remembered.
Directed by Park Kiyong is known for features such as Motel Cactus, Camels, Garibong, Yanji and Picture Of Hell. He is also a former chairperson of the Korean Film Council. The film is produced by Ho Yuhang, whose 2024 film The Silent Village earned two awards at last year’s JAFF Future Project.
Contact: Park Kiyong, b films
My Mother (Indo-Japan-Fr)
Dir. Eddie Cahyono
Prods. Tika Bravani, Eddie Cahyono, Shin Yamaguchi, Isabelle Glachant
Prodcos. ANP Talenta Media, KnockOnWood
Budget: $350,000
Eddie Cahyono, the Indonesian filmmaker behind acclaimed 2014 feature Siti, returns with the story of a widow whose life unravels when she learns that her daughter – who fled an abusive marriage and became a migrant worker in Saudi Arabia – has been sentenced to death. Though the mother is desperate to reunite, her daughter refuses to meet, still scarred by the childhood wounds of being “sold off” to settle a family debt.
Drawn from years of research into Indonesian migrant labourers and the families they end up leaving behind, Cahyono has crafted a portrait of estrangement shaped by poverty, survival and unspoken pain.
The film is produced by ANP Talenta Media, which presented The Tiger at last year’s JAFF Future Project, and an ensemble cast includes Christine Hakim, Ayushita and Landung Simatupang.
Contact: ANP Talenta Media
Our Son (Indo)
Dir Luhki Herwanayogi
Prods. Iqbal Mohammad Hamdan, Giovanni Rahmadeva, Siera Tamihardja (co-producer)
Prodco. Catchlight Pictures, Qun Films
Budget: $562,000 ($355,000 raised)
Set in the director’s hometown of Yogyakarta, this drama follows two married couples who grow close through their shared longing for a child. When one couple has a baby, their demanding work schedules lead the other to help raise him, and the two couples settle into an unspoken, unconventional co-parenting bond. But when the boy turns seven and falls ill, a blood test offers a shocking revelation that he is the result of an affair.
Drawing on Herwanayogi’s personal reflections on family pressure and the meaning of parenthood in Indonesia, this debut feature approaches its characters with empathy as they navigate love, betrayal and the hope of forgiveness.
The film’s development began at the Busan Asian Film School in 2019, received the Locarno Open Doors Grant in 2021 and is in post-production.
Contact: Iqbal Mohammad Hamdan, Catchlight Pictures
Rose Pandanwangi (Indo-Phil)
Dir. Razka Robby Ertanto
Prods. Kristine De Leon, Chelsea Islan, Razka Robby Ertanto, Orlando Bassi
Prodcos. Summerland, Movie Studio Bali
Budget: $828,000 ($555,000 raised)
Traveling between Indonesia and the Netherlands, this biographical drama follows the eponymous Rose Pandanwangi, a singer whose life mirrored Indonesia’s turbulent post-war period. Born in wartime Makassar and later exiled in Rotterdam, Rose returned to Jakarta where her voice became a beacon for the newly independent Indonesia.
However, propelled from factory worker to national icon, her fame impacted her marriage, and she found herself in the political crossfire of an anti-communist purge.
The upcoming feature is grounded in research and filmed against the backdrops of different continents, eras and political unrest. Indonesian director Ertanto is joined by writers Arvin Belarmino and Kyla Danelle Romero alongside Oscar and Tony-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell.
Contact: Razka Robby Ertanto, Summerland
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