Tanah Sabrang

Perhaps, the early adoption of the term “documentary” was inseparable from a spirit of discovery and exploration, which—if we trace its origins—is actually inextricably linked to the very concept of colonialism itself. Nanook of the North (1922), for example, by Robert J. Flaherty—a filmmaker hailed as the epitome of the early adoption of the term “documentary”—embodies the exoticism of exploration, with several fishing scenes deliberately staged to capture moments of anticipation. We can see the same thing in the works of Willy Mullens in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) during the 1920s, which documented the remote corners of the archipelago. Documentary cinema in these two examples serves as a kind of testimony—or at the very least, proof of one’s “presence there”—proof of the exploration itself. Later on, we heard rumors about scenes and approaches that were deliberately staged, such as the poses of native people and so on, revealing what took place behind the camera in ethnographic documentary models during the colonial era. Some of these are considered history of the past, but they do not necessarily become memories.

Certainly, we are familiar with other documentary traditions, such as those of Joris Ivens and the renowned film theorist Dziga Vertov, who used the elements of the film medium to reveal the “truth” of everyday reality that is invisible to the human eye. In its development, the documentary genre has inevitably followed what Jacques Rancière stated: that reality must be fictionalized in order to be thought about. Also included in the development of documentary cinema is the fact that the objects of exploration are no longer limited to remote or marginalized regions, but also include objects or subjects such as dreams, trauma, the past, and so on—things related to the sensory realm—which require other tools, such as fiction, precisely to achieve the documentary’s objectives.

This year’s Lanskap is an effort to interpret non-competitive works that consistently seek out new possibilities within a context of a festival that celebrates diversity. The struggle of memory against history, including the use of tradition, everyday life, and mythology, is part of an approach to understanding an unreachable reality—or an inadequate historiography that stirs the memory. Documentary cinema has always had its own way of reaching the most traumatic and personal realities, which simultaneously contribute to the expansion of its very meaning.

— Akbar Yumni
Programmer