The BaliMakarya Film Festival, which will run from October 16-21 in popular Indonesian tourist destination Bali, is set to expand into a regional event with a strong focus on Southeast Asian cinema.
It is one of four film festivals due to take place in Indonesia over the next two months, reflecting the vibrant film culture in the vast country.
Last year, the inaugural BaliMakarya festival was held online only with just a national competition for short films. This year, the second edition has added three competitions for Southeast Asian features, Southeast Asian documentaries and Indonesian films.
“We aim to be a new hub of showcasing emerging talents from Southeast Asia. It is also a platform to introduce new Indonesian films and to programme more hybrid forms of audiovisuals in the future,” says programme director John Badalu.
Two Indonesian films are making their world premieres. Tegar by Anggi Frisca, will open the festival and is screening in the Indonesian film competition, while Alang Alang, the debut feature by Khusnul Khitam, is in the Southeast Asian feature competition.
The 10-title Southeast Asian feature competition also includes new titles such as He Shuming’s Ajoomma and Memento Mori: Earth by Marcus Manh Cuong Vu, both of which will premiere in the New Currents competition at the upcoming Busan International Film Festival (Oct 5-14); Woo Ming Jin’s Stone Turtle, which earned the Fipresci prize after playing in Locarno’s international competition; and Sorayos Prapapan’s Arnold Is A Model Student, also from Locarno.
Three separate juries will determine the awards. Jury members travelling from overseas include Benjamin Illos from Cannes Director’s Fortnight, Claire Marty from New York Asian Film Festival, Malaysian filmmaker Amir Muhammad, Ellen Y.D Kim from Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival and Ed Lejano from QCinema Film Festival.
The festival is funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology. Board members include renowned filmmaker Garin Nugroho, actress Ayu Laksmi (Satan’s Slave film series) and producer Leni Lolang.
BaliMakarya is back-to-back with the Jakarta Film Week, which has its second edition running from October 13-16 in the Indonesian capital. Another two upcoming film festivals will be held in the Javanese city Jogjakarta: Festival Film Dokumenter (November 14-19), the first documentary film festival in Southeast Asia, and Jogja Netpac Asian Film Festival (November 26-December 3).
The Bali International Film Festival (Balinale), which also takes place in Bali, started in 2007 and was last held in June.
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