Understanding Archives with Hardiawan Prayoga

— Interview
FFD 2021

Hardiawan Prayoga is an archivist of IVAA, who is responsible for managing IVAA’s archives that are comprehensive and accessible. He studied at Universitas Gadjah Mada majoring in Pengkajian Seni Pertunjukan dan Seni Rupa.

We had the opportunity to talk with Hardiawan Prayoga, this year’s interviewee for the program Lanskap: Indonesia within Documents, the Use of Documentary Film Archives. With us, Hardiawan Prayoga shares the importance of archiving audiovisual works, the future of Indonesian documentary films, and his view on discussion sessions brought out by FFD.

 

Generally, how do you see the work of archiving in Indonesia? Is it already decent? What aspects should be improved?

One thing for sure, archiving in Indonesia can’t be taken to one ideal standard. Except for national institutions. In the more communal area, the archiving runs with its own standard.

One thing that should be underlined is the variation of the archiving model. I believe that every community does archive with its own standard, along with its own consequences.

 

Indonesia has various archiving models. As a person who experiences directly the work of archiving, do audiovisual works need to be archived? What is the importance? Who should do the archiving?

A film can be considered as an archive. Many believe that film represents reality. Therefore, we can see further that actually, a film is an archive. Because filmmaking is also a work of archiving, it is one of the parts that should be managed as an archive. Who should do it? Everyone in the filmmaking environment should do the work of archiving.

 

How far the public in general should be involved in the work of audiovisual work archiving?

For me, it is not that general, only the ones in the environment. Whoever has an interest in using archives or a feeling that their archives are potentially used in the future, shall do a work of archiving. It is not limited only to the general or the specific public. Actually, I have no idea about the definition of that. But for me, whoever thinks that archiving matters should do the work of archiving.

 

Is education for the public on accessing archives important?

As long as the archives need to be published, they should be published. The problem is that not every archive is publicly accessible. Therefore, the right to access the archives is also managed by the archivers or the representation of the archivers. We understand that the archives are important, but on the other hand, some archives are inaccessible. For example, the archives on ‘65 or national violence. Those archives are not easy to access.

There are several different situations about this access thing. When the archives are already published, we should think about the character of the archive users whether they fit our archiving models or our publication models.

 

What do you think about the future of Indonesian documentary film archives?

To be honest, I don’t really into this field. But for me, as long as people still make films, people work on the art, archiving will always exist despite the variation of the method. We don’t really know that in the future, archiving will use more advanced technology or even go back to using the old analog model to limit public access.

For now, I believe that there will be innovation on the internet. One thing we should talk about is the problem brought by making accessing archives easier. Perhaps, besides the technology in the archiving world, we should discuss the regulation and access to particular archives more. Yeah, like intellectual property. In the future, I think something like that will be in many conversations.

 

You were involved in the FFD discussion last year. As you can see, what do you think of FFD as a word spreader to the public, especially related to political and documentary issues?  What things need to improve? What things need to be kept?

I see that sometimes discussion sessions in film-related events have been trying to talk about the problems experienced by our colleagues in the filmmaking field or expand to a broader topic, not only limited to the ones doing filmmaking activity. I don’t know if the topics in those discussions are some things that have been attempted for quality improvement from year to year. I don’t know since there have been many events that organize those kinds of discussions, whether it is together with the film screening or just standalone.

But, does this discussion become something bigger than conversations between filmmakers? Is that the vision? I don’t know. That is maybe the FFD’s vision. But for me, as someone who tries to see from the other side, it seems that the topic that does not see films matters only for filmmakers can be emphasized. I see that FFD is a festival whose audience is more general than other festivals. Therefore, FFD has a bigger potential to discuss film production issues or whatnot.

One thing that should be kept is the discussion program. It is interesting to have one program for educational purposes. Another important thing is the spirit of becoming a part of the conversations about filmmaking. Interesting to have some attempts to be involved in discussions, conversations, chit-chat about filmmaking activities. I think FFD should keep that.

 

How is your experience in FFD that is currently held online?

I am coming to a festival, but I don’t feel festive. It feels like watching films on an online platform. Usually, when I come to an offline festival, I feel the atmosphere of the festival. Even though I need to access the website to watch the films, I feel “oh, this is not like coming to a festival.” A fun experience for me, honestly. Feels like blending with the unity of the film presentation. I don’t remember the label branding.

This is the most comfortable film screening experience, the most flexible rather than coming to the venue. The most relaxed, since I can watch the film while lying on my bed. If I fall asleep during the film screening, I will not be missing the films since I can rewatch them again in four days. This is a new experience of coming to a festival, I hope they can keep this method, even though the pandemic is over.

 

Written by Dinda Agita