Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) 2024 has finally come to an end. Held for nine days straight, 71 films–both short and feature-length documentaries–were screened in various programs. Starting with the prefestival program Le Mois du Film Documentaire screened on November 1, 2024 at IFI Yogyakarta, and the last screening session was the Spektrum and Lanskap at Taman Budaya Yogyakarta (TBY).
This year, it was the 23rd Festival Film Dokumenter, in which various programs were presented, including Competitions (International Feature-Length Competition, Indonesia Feature-Length Competition, Short Competition, and Student Competition), Perspektif (Third Cinema), Spektrum, Retrospektif (Jocelyne Saab), Lanskap (Ghost Culture, Terraform, Scope of Cinema, and Constellation of Relation), Utopia/Dystopia, Docs Docs: Short!, DOC Talk, Exhibition, and Le Mois du Film Documentaire. The Exhibition Program with the title Ambiguity was the last program presented in the series of FFD 2024 programs run simultaneously. More than four thousand visitors worldwide attended the festival to become a part of the programs.
Conducting the event, Forum Film Dokumenter’s Indonesia Documentary Laboratory (IDOCLAB) 2024 was part of the festival that has been held intensively at GAIA Cosmo Hotel. This was the 2nd edition of IDOCLAB since it was started in 2023. Project initiators consisting of director and producer have joined an intensive 3-month workshop to develop their potential projects. These documentary projects come from the eastern end to the western end of Indonesia to represent the richness of Indonesia’s diverse cultural treasures.
The awarding and closing night of FFD 2024 was held at Militaire Societeit, TBY. It was attended by filmmakers, juries, programmers, and representatives of partners involved in organizing the festival and it was opened to the public. This event was opened by Vanis, the Communication Manager of FFD 2024, who read the description of the series of festivals. Following that, there were some speeches and the awards announcement of various categories of documentary competition. “We thank the partners and parties who have supported Festival Film Dokumenter 2024 for nine days straight,” she said.
The first speech was given by Nujul Kristanto, the Associate Cultural Director, the Head of the Film Appreciation and Literacy Team, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Indonesia who thanked all parties for their hard work in making this event possible. Nujul hoped that IDOCLAB and FFD alumni would continue to develop and improve the quality of their work, both locally and internationally. The speech closed with a rhyme (pantun) as a prayer for a brighter future. “We pray that this FFD will always greet us in the years to come, presenting improved quality,” he said.
Kurnia Yudha as the IDOCLAB Program Director continued by conveying that IDOCLAB was organized to tell the story of Indonesia’s plurality through deep visual language. Three projects selected this year, which were A Ghost Story from Reba (Radu), Agoni and Stones from the East (Agoni dan Batu-Batu dari Timur), and The Unknown Prologue, each explored the social, cultural, and complexity themes of Indonesia in a unique way and invited the audience to reflect more deeply on the various layers of issues in society. “We found the reflective power to tell how a very personal thing is always connected to the larger framework of the problem,” he stated.
After the announcement and awarding of selected projects of IDOCLAB 2024, the announcement of awards for various competitions was the next agenda item in the closing ceremony of FFD 2024. There were four categories announced in this year’s competition program, including the categories of student documentaries, short documentaries, Indonesian feature-length documentaries, and international feature-length documentaries. In this session, the juries in each category announced the winners while providing a statement of responsibility regarding the category they oversaw. The presentation of the juries from all categories of the competition was conducted by Alia Damaihati as the Director of FFD 2024.
The student competition program was the first category announced. Valencia Winata and Diah Kusumaningrum as the jury representatives read the jury’s statement of responsibility for this program that had been compiled with Permata Adinda. No winners were announced in the student category, but they appreciated the hard work of the five nominated filmmakers in making the films. Moreover, four out of five films were from Eastern Indonesia whose voices were often marginalized. “Right now, we are in an increasingly uncertain social and political climate, and what we can hope for is the ability to imagine. We believe that student filmmakers have many opportunities in the future to explore and sharpen those abilities,” they explained. There might be no winning film in this category, but there is always hope for the emergence of young documentary filmmakers who present broad, reflective narratives with expanded ideas and an ever-widening screening space. Finally, the jury announced the Jury Special Mention award for the student category won by Henge’dho (Sesilia Y.Y. Klaran, 2023).
The next announcement was the short documentary competition presented by Mira Asriningtyas and Sébastien Simon as the jury representatives of this category. After making various considerations, the jury decided to choose A Tale for My Daughter (Tutaha Subang) (Wulan Putri, 2024) as the awardee of the Short Competition program in FFD2024. “This film offers both a highly personal perspective as well as a contemporary twist on a very pressing matter: the weight of the past on the present. It does so through its poetic visuals and its consistent formal approach which allows it to react to a true emotional core,” Simon says.
Accompanied by Asep Komarudin as the Executive Producer of A Tale for My Daughter (2024), Wulan expressed her gratitude to the jury. She also conveyed a quote from Rocky Gerung stating that the womb was the place where a child as a human being first experienced justice. “I present this award to my friends in Awyu, in South Papua, who may have had to go through a lot of grief, losing several times in PDUN and the Supreme Court,” she added.
The next category was the International Feature-Length Competition Program. The jury members were Thong Kay Wee, Ade Darmawan, and Swan Dubus who decided to award After The Snowmelt (Yi-Shan Lo, 2024) as the awardee of this category. Represented by Swan Dubus, the following was the jury’s statement of responsibility. “After deliberation, the jury has decided to award the Best International Feature-Length prize to a deeply introspective film about an unexpected bereavement and the journey of grief and healing. Through the use of quietly poetic scenes and a combination of both personal and public archives, the layers of guilt and sorrow slowly unravel themselves to envelop the jury within the immensity of the filmmaker’s loss. Fragile yet courageous, this film sensitively documents the emotional volatility at its most intimate moments, and serves as a therapeutic cinematic exercise for finding reprieve and closure within oneself.”
Unfortunately, on this delightful night, Yi-Shan Lo, the director of After the Snowmelt (2024), was not able to attend in person. Through a video recording, they conveyed their gratitude and apologies for not being able to be at this event. “I would like to thank Festival Film Dokumenter for having the film in the international competition. I’m very happy to have our Indonesian premiere at this festival. I would like to thank all the jury members for honoring us with these amazing prizes. This is a story about friendship and loss, about how two young people deal with the passing of their loved one, on earth of the meaning of survival and life in the wilderness and also in the mountains. This is also a story about the struggles of gender and identity, a struggle that we believe is shared between people of different generations and nationalities. I regret that I cannot attend the screening and the ceremony in person,” they explained.
The Indonesia Feature-Length Competition became the category that was eagerly awaited for the announcement that night. The four nominations in this category offer a variety of socio-cultural perspectives with an intimate approach. Based on the consideration and intense discussion of the jury, Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn, Novasari Widyaningsih, and Amelia Hapsari, The Silent Path (Yonri Revolt, 2024) was selected as the awardee in the FFD 2024 Indonesia Feature-Length Competition. “For us as jury members, the winning film is the one that we consider the most successful in filling the spaces on the screen. Either with intimacy, nuance, special approach, narrative layers, or surprising elements of the documented subject–either with seriousness or cheerfulness. Through the complex lives of a man who has witnessed multi-layered oppression, but still shows affection and hope; we see a more nuanced story about a country and its people,” said Amelia Hapsari.
The announcement of this award surprised Yonri as he did not expect to be the winner. “Thank you to the juries who have chosen our film, and thank you also to friends who came to watch and brought discussions that I think were very diverse and intense, I am pleased with the experience. I would like to express my gratitude to our dearest film crew who consistently offer their help without compensation,” he explained in his speech. Rendy Rizal, as the producer, also conveyed his hope for FFD and cinema in Papua, “Hopefully FFD will always be here and hopefully this film will be a sign for the rise of cinema languages in Papua to appear on the surface, thank you.”
Presented by Forum Film Dokumenter, FFD 2024 came as a developing and impactful distribution space for various documentaries screened in various programs. This explosion of novelty that goes beyond boundaries and the growth of inclusive screening were supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, Dana Indonesiana, the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education Agency (LPDP), and the Department of Culture (Kundha Kabudayan) in Yogyakarta. In addition, there were several Festival Film Dokumenter partners––Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, Institut Français Indonesie, Epson Indonesia, Rekam Bergerak, KDM Cinema, Cemeti-Institut untuk Seni dan Masyarakat, Ruang MES 56, Pandhu HB Art Organizer, and Jogja Festivals. The celebration of this festival would also not be this amazing without the magical touch of FFD 2024 collaborating artist, Kurniadi Widodo, with his amazing photography works, and Wok the Rock for his experimental festival bumper video.
FFD 2024 became a warm and inclusive space for filmmakers, artists, critics, and audiences who paid a visit in the same room. This was affirmed by Bagaskara DBA, the director of Three Parts of Life (2024) whose film was screened on the Landscape Program: Scope of Cinema. “FFD, from year to year, is always special. Alhamdulillah, my film can be screened at this festival and I had the chance to talk with the committee and warm volunteers. Like without limits, everything melts down,” he said. At the end of the session, all volunteers were welcome to come to the front of the stage as a form of appreciation. Their video footage during the festival was also shown with the accompaniment of jedag-jedug music. Finally, FFD 2024 has ended, but the discourse that revolves around it continues to grow and create new hope for Indonesian documentaries.
The following is a list of selected IDOCLAB 2024 projects and competition award winners:
IDOCLAB 2024 Selected Projects
A Ghost Story from Reba (Radu)
Director: Iqbal Keane Kembaren | Producer: Vibinur Wulandari | Karo, West Sumatra
Agony and Stones from The East (Agoni dan Batu-batu dari Timur)
Director: Engel Seran, Suvi Wahyudianto | Producer: Ivonne Kani | Belu, East Nusa Tenggara
The Unknown Prologue
Director: Jae Khoirun Sirfefa | Producer: Muhammad Rafi Tanjung | Kaimana, West Papua
The Awardee of Competition Program FFD 2024
Jury’s Special Mention Student Competition
Henge ‘do
Sesilia Y. Y. Klaran (2023) | East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Short Documentary
A Tale for My Daughter (Tutaha Subang)
Wulan Putri (2024) | DKI Jakarta, Indonesia
Indonesia Feature-Length Documentary
The Silent Path (Soebertono Mote)
Yonri Revolt (2024) | Papua, Indonesia
International Feature-Length Documentary
After the Snowmelt (雪水消融的季節)
Yi-Shan Lo (2024) | Taiwan & Japan
Covered by Ahmad Radhitya Alam on November 9, 2024. (Ed. Vanis/Trans. Shafira Rahmasari)
