The Indonesia Feature-Length Competition Festival Film Dokumenter (FFD) 2025 presents four films that reflect different positions within contemporary Indonesian documentary practice. The lineup includes works that explore historical memory, self-portraiture, sociopolitical reflection, and satire, showing how local documentary has expanded in both subject matter and formal attitude. Each title brings its own point of entry into the present moment, whether through personal narratives, collective trauma, or the discomfort of looking at oneself through cinema. The nominations are A DISTORTED INDIVIDUAL. (Adythia Utama, 2025), Bachtiar (Hafiz Rancajale, 2025), Koesroyo: The Last Man Standing (Linda Ochy, 2024), and Our Rangsot (Dhuha Ramadhani, 2025).
This year’s jury consisted of Dave Lumenta, Taichi Ishikawa, and Nia Dinata. They entered the deliberation from very different professional backgrounds, yet their reflections on the four films led to an unexpectedly aligned result. Dinata shared that she entered the session expecting disagreements, particularly because she and Lumenta sometimes share similar references while Ishikawa brings an entirely different context. Instead, she found that the three jurors identified similar highlights in the films. For her, the alignment was evidence of the shared anxieties and energies among filmmakers and film workers across geographies, which shaped the way they responded to the same works.
Lumenta explained that he always watches films first as a lay audience. For him, if the intention of the film cannot be grasped by a general viewer, the problem lies within the work itself rather than in the audience. Adopting this position helped the jury evaluate films that were stylistically different by returning to the clarity of intention and reception. The jury members considered the diversity within the lineup to be a strength of the program. Dinata described feeling relief in seeing four films that diverged widely in subject, tone, and approach.
The jury members framed the decision around the importance of antiheroes in contemporary documentaries. Lumenta was noting that Indonesian documentary culture often gravitates toward heroes and solemn tones, while satire and discomfort can also be effective ways of engaging critical issues. For Ishikawa, selecting a winner from four incomparable films was difficult because each requires different evaluative standards. The process made him more aware of the dilemmas juries encounter and expanded his view of how documentaries can function.
The conversation then addressed whether the winning film could expand public understanding of documentary beyond conventional expectations. Dinata added that FFD, entering its 24th year, has a responsibility to sustain diversity in filmmaking and open space for different subjects and ways of being. She argued that the winning work advocates for difference without slipping into narcissism and described it as a fresh reflection of contemporary paradoxes in which society elevates individuals and then criticises them for self-interest.
The jury members concluded that although the four films required different standards of evaluation, the winning work demonstrated clarity of intention, strength of form, and resonance with the social and cultural moment in Indonesia today. Best Film FFD 2025 for Indonesia Feature-Length Competition is awarded to A DISTORTED INDIVIDUAL. (2025), producer and director Adythia Utama, produced by NORTHERN KEMANG PICTURES.
Jury’s Statement for Best Film Award
In a time when we are overtly obsessed with creating idols without substance, awards without real merits, and idolize false markers of achievement and success, this film is the antithesis of celebrity culture. It effortlessly uses satire to sharply criticize the music industry. This personal documentary doesn’t just show a distorted society, it is part of it. Therefore, after a long and thorough process of deliberation, we have selected A Distorted Individual as the Best Film for the Indonesian Feature-Length Competition.
Festival Film Dokumenter is grateful to all the jury members (Dave Lumenta, Taichi Ishikawa, Nia Dinata) and selectors (Agus Mediarta, Eric Sasono, Lee Yve Vonn) of the Indonesia Feature-length Competition category. Festival Film Dokumenter is presented by Forum Film Dokumenter, Indonesia. (Vanis, 25/11/2025)
