Mondo Macabro as Trashy/Cult Film Archive: The Case of Classic Indonesian Exploitation Cinema

Source: Plaridel • Vol. 15 No. 2 • July - December 2018

(video) Sekilas soal Festival Film, Budaya Menonton, dan Kritik Film

"Passionate Revolutions: The Media and the Rise and Fall of the Marcos Regime" (book review)

My take on "Passionate Revolutions: The Media and the Rise and Fall of the Marcos Regime" (Talitha Espiritu, 2018).
Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and TV (2018) Vol. 0, No 0, 1-3.

Link: here

Fantastic Beasts 2, Bisnis (17/11)

Saya diwawancara Bisnis (17/11) untuk film Fantastic Beasts 2 : Link: klik ini

Diwawancara Watyutink

Saya diwawancara Watyutink

1) soal fenomena Sinetron Azab (20 September 2018)
Link klik di sini.
2) Soal Pidato Jokowi seputar Games of Thrones (16 Oktober 2018).
Link klik di sini
3) Soal Film Jakarta vs Film Daerah (14 September 2017)
Link Klik di sini

Suzanna, Film Reborn, dan Sinema Cult

Tulisan saya di Koran Tempo hari ini: 

Trailer: 

See you at Jogja NETPAC Asian Film Festival, 1-4 December!

I will be in Jogjakarta for Jogja NETPAC Asian Film Festival, 1-4 December 2018.

First, I am so honored to become one of the panelists at Classic Asian Films with great people:  Monday, 2 December 2018. I will share my experiences and knowledge on finding film archives and accessing classic films.

Second, I will be the moderator at Focus on Garin Nugroho; Mon, 3 December.

All Public Lecture events will start at 10.00 am at PENDOPO AJIYASA Jogja National Museum.
See you there!

"Bohemian Rhapsody" dan Sinema yang Magis

Demam film “Bohemian Rhapsody” melanda Indonesia. Para kritikus film pun mempertanyakan soal akurasi faktual (seperti perpecahan sebelum Live Aid, atau pengumuman Freddy Mercury kena Aids).

Menurutku, akurasi (khususnya yang terkait dengan cerita) tak terlalu penting di untuk konteks film ini. Memang cerita agak lemah. Tapi ini film fiksi dan ini bukan karya ilmiah. Dan film BUKANlah Realitas, dan tidak ada kewajiban untuk plek2an seperti realitas. Film adalah representasi, bukan gambaran realitas. Skenarionya pun sudah di-acc kedua anggota Queen lainnya.

Ysng jauh lebih penting adalah bagaimana film ini melibatkan penontonnya. Mereka bernyanyi (sing along), bertepuk tangan (di bioskop sekelas plaza senayan!), ikut terharu, tersihir oleh kekuatan magis sinema. Berapa banyak film yang mampu melakukannya?

Tak hanya itu, mereka membahasnya di media sosial. Dan menontonnya berkali-kali. Ini adalah contoh media cult: dirayakan, ditonton berulang-ulang, secara “militan”. Tentu yang cult adalah Queen, Freddy, dan lagu-lagunya. Apakah filmnya akan berstatus cult, hanya waktu yang dpt menjawabnya.

Kembali ke soal cerita yang “ banyak yang tidak akuratnya”: sutradara, penulis skenario, dan para produser (termasuk 2 anggota Queen) memilih dan memilah mana yg masuk dan yg tidak, juga soal sudut pandang dan penonjolan tema tertentu. Dan itu sah2 saja.

Tentu saya kecewa gak ada bicycle ride dan flash gordon, misalnya. Atau kurang dalamnya soal Freddy yg adalah “Great Pretender” (ada di salah satu dokumenternya). Tapi itu pilihan, mau mengambil “realitas” yg mana?
Bahkan dalam dokumenter pun, terjadi pemilihan dan pemilihan sudut pandang, tema, dll. Tidak ada yg benar2 akurat dalam konteks “menggambarkan kenyataan yg sebenarnya”.

Saya memilih untuk merayakan film ini dan menikmatinya, ikut terseret peduli dengan seorang anak yg misfits, minoritas dan sering dibully (imigran, non-putih, tonggos, gay, penderita AIDS), yang acap kesepian, tapi jenius dalam bermusik. Dan dicintai jutaan penggemarnya.

(Malek, dalam satu wawancara, pernah menyatakan betapa kesepiannya Freddy, yang tercermin dalam lirik-lirik lagu yang ia ciptakan. )

Saya bersama para penonton yang memilih untuk terpukau dan tersihir dengan film ini. Karena..it’s a kind of magic.

Graduation Day and Other Norwich Summery Tales

Norwich and Great Yarmouth, 14-18 July 2018.
Graduation Day: Norwich Football Club, 17 July 2018.
Alhamdulillah. Thank you, all!

enjoy the pictures and short videos:

OTW to Norwich Football Stadium

first picture with family as a graduand

with Dr. Toby Reynolds, fellow Bristol-based UEA PhD student

waiting for the moment

with Dr. Patrick Bingham-Scales, Dr. Adam Bingham-Scales, and  Dr. Tim Snelson, and UEA Bunny, of course,

in front of Norwich City Hall

with Dr. Rayna Denison, my secondary supervisor, at Biddys

with Prof. Mark Jancovich, my supervisor and mentor, a day before D-Day

with Dr. and Mr. Sheppard. Thank you for the gifts!

with Valencia and PPI Norwich, few days before D-Day

enjoying GoGoHare 2

the certificate! 

Finally: Thank you! (Acknowledgements)

Every journey has an end. And so is my PhD journey.
What an experience! Therefore, I need to say thanks to everybody, particularly the following individuals and institutions:
(taken from my PhD thesis)

Acknowledgements

It has been a long and winding PhD journey to me for the last four years, and alhamdulillah, all praise be to God, eventually it reaches an end. I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to some people.

First and foremost,  I would like to thank Prof. Mark Jancovich as my primary supervisor,  for giving me  very useful and sharp feedback and suggestions on many things, and  encouraging my research so I can develop as a better film researcher. Secondly, thanks to Dr. Rayna Denison, my secondary supervisor who helped me a lot during these four years.

I would like to thank   my external and internal examiners, Dr. Iain Robert Smith and Dr. Emma Pett, respectively.

I also want to express my gratitude to my sponsor, DIKTI Scholarship from Higher Education Directorate, Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education, Republic of Indonesia.  Also to Bina Nusantara University, my home-university in Jakarta, for the support and family allowances, particularly The Rector of Binus University (Prof. Harjanto Prabowo), Executive Dean of BINUS INTERNATIONAL (Firdaus Alamsjah, PhD), Dean of Faculty of Computing and Media (Minaldi Loeis, M.Sc., MM), Head of Film Program (Adilla Amelia, MFA), as well as Career Scholarship Department (Icha, Ignatia, etc.).

My sincere thanks also goes to people at UEA’s FTM Department and PGR Office (particularly Clare Thornett and Ann Nichols), thank you for the PPD modules and Conference Grant.  And thank you, UEA, for giving me two awards in 2015, Student Award (UEA Engagement Awards), and Public Engagement Prizes (UEA Graduate School Prizes), and hiring me as an associate tutor for a semester in 2014 (thank you to the module conveners: Dr. Christine Cornea, Dr. Rayna Denison,  and Peter Kramer).

Also many thanks to UEA’s Graduate Student Association for Graduate conference fund, so I could attend and present papers at the Global Exploitation Cinemas Conference (Lincoln 27-29 May 2015) and the Cine-Excess Conference (Brighton, 14-16 November, 2014).

I did my successful archive visits in Jakarta in 2014 for two months.  For this, I thank Sinematek Indonesia (particularly Mbak Nia Sulaeman) and the National Library of Indonesia, as well as   UEA’s Employability and Engagement Fund for the travel grant.

To Jack Jensen and all the global fans (bloggers, members of AVManiacs), thank you for the discussions in the forums (which I passively participated) and online reviews.

The PhD journey is not only about writing a thesis, but also networking, conferences, and journals, as well as developing myself as a better person.  I learned a lot about organizing scholarly events in the UK from Dr. Ben Murtagh from SOAS University of London who asked me to become co-organizer for the Workshop on Indonesian Cinema and London Indonesia Film Screenings in 2013 and 2015.  I also thank the fellow 2015 co-organizers who are also my UK-based PhD student buddies in Indonesian Cinema studies, Tito Imanda and Eric Sasono.  Thank you the participants of the events,   Ari Purnama, Dr. Dag Yngvesson, Dr. Yvonne Michalik, Dr. Novi Kurnia, Dr. Alicia Izharuddin, Dr. Dafna Ruppin, Dr. Adam Knee, Viola Lasmana, and Katie Whitcombe.

During my PhD study I was honored that I was invited  by Patrick Campos as guest editor of the Plaridel Special Issue, Volume 11 Issue 02, Theme: The Bad, The Worse, and The Worst: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies. Thank you, Patric and the Plaridel team, and also the writers: Dag, Eric, Dr. Thomas Barker, Prof.  Xavier Mendik, Bastian Mereisonne, Andrew Leavold, Dr. Maymunah Munir, and Makbul Mubarak.

My Supervisor told me to aim for the main conferences to present my papers, such as SCMS and MECCSA. And I did both. Thank you SCMS 2015 and MECCSA 2014 for my fee waiver and travel bursary and made it possible for me to attend and present my papers. Also SPRET Educational Trust that made it possible for me to fly to Montreal. And to Veronika Kusuma and Prof. Mary Steedly who invited me to Harvard University for a talk (30 March 2015) organized by  Politics and Culture in Indonesia Working Group and the Department of Anthropology, right after the SCMS conference.

At ASEASUK 2016, I had great experiences as the co-organizer of a successful panel with Tito Imanda, and met great panelists:  Wikanda Promkhuntong, Dr. Adil Johan, Dr. Muria Endah, and Shadia Prasmadji. Thank you, all!

I co-organized at least two public engagement events related to my PhD research, and got good feedback from the audience. In Jakarta, I co-organized a two-week film screenings and discussion at Kineforum, June 2014, and double bill screenings as part of Scalarama Bristol at The Cube Microplex. Thank you, Alexander Matius and Kineforum people, Matt D, and Toby Reynolds.

For good friends while I was in Norwich as well as Bristol, thank you PPI Norwich, UEA Indonesian Society, Ihsan Mosque,  PPI Bristol, Al-Hijrah Muslim Indonesian Society in Bristol, and Bristol Indonesian Society. Also, my fellow Binus colleague in the UK: Indra Kusumawardhana.

Of course, I should thank to fellow PhD UEA students, particularly Linda “Ky” McCarthy, Gopalan Mullik, Ruchika Gurung, Miriam Bros, Jeremy Qian, Toby Reynolds, Ed Vollans, Irene Cuder, Martin Tease, Adam and Patrick Bingham-Scales, Filipa Antunes, Alexander Plowman, Phil Smith, Ellen Wright, and Robert Manning. I also want to thank all of UEA’s lecturers.

I was inspired by some people to research the topic of classic Indonesian exploitation cinema: Pete Tombs, Joko Anwar Thomas Barker. Thank you.  Also my fellow Indonesian and Southeast Asian Film scholars and critics who I have not mentioned yet: Hikmat Darmawan, Veronika Kusuma, Dr. Intan Paramaditha, Prof. Andrew Weintraub, Dr. Philippa Lovatt, Dr. Gaik Cheng Khoo, Dr. Mariam Lam, Prof. Ariel Heryanto, Asmayani Kusrini, Ifan Ismail, and Krisnadi Kurniawan.

Moreover, thanks to the circles of exploitation and cult film and aca-fandom scholars: Dr. Iain Robert Smith, Dr. Austin Fisher, Dr. Johnny Walker, Dr. Kate Egan, and Prof. Henry Jenkins.

Thanks to Amir Muhammad who took me to Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur, and experienced the alternative VCD shop in 2009.

And, I am very grateful that I have a big family with big support for my study: my father H. Eko Winarto, SE,  my mother Hj. Etty Herawati, my sisters, my brother and their families,  my parents-in-law, sisters-in-law, brother-in-law and their big family. Thank you very much.

And finally, I should thank Rossy Syaukat and Medina Azzahra, my wife and little daughter, who accompanied me while I am in the UK who helped me keep my “sanity” and my life joyful during my PhD studies. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. Both of them mean the world to me.

Part of the Introduction and Chapter 1 were published by Plaridel (Vol 11 no. 2, 2014), namely “A Note from the Editor/And Introduction: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies”.

A modified version of Chapter 2 is in the process of publication in the forthcoming Cine-Excess Journal, 2017, titled “Entertaining the Villagers: Rural Audiences, Traveling Cinema, and Exploitation Movies in Indonesia”.   

A modified version of Chapter 5 will be published  in the forthcoming Plaridel journal on Film and Archive in Southeast Asian Cinema (edited by Adam Knee)

  

Post Scriptum:
In addition, I also need to say thanks to everybody who supported me during my master studies in University of Indonesia (Philosophy, 1998-2003) and Universiteit van Amsterdam (Film Studies, 2007-2008), particularly:
Prof. Pamela Pattynama (my UvA supervisor),  Dr. Agus Nugroho (my UI supervisor),  my lecturers at UvA (Dr. Michael Wedel, Prof. Patricia Pisters, Prof. Dr. Thomas Elsaessers, Dr. Marie Lous Baronian, Dr. Tarja Laine), my lecturers and academic leaders  at UI (Prof. Dr. Toety Heraty, Prof. Dr. Soerjanto Poespowardojo; Dr. Achyar Lubis, Dr. Harsyawibawa, Prof. Dr. Mulyadi Kertanegara), my fellow master students at UI and UvA (particularly Sarah Levitt, Amir Vodka, Raluca Iacob), Koestraat gang, ESQ Europan Alumnae, and people who gave me reference letters (Dr. Haryatmoko, Riri Riza, Nia Dinata, Dr. Minal Aidin).
Also, thanks to Amsterdam Merit Scholarship (UvA) and Putra Jethmal Foundation and Orlow Seunke for giving me the educational funding while i was studying in Amsterdam. Thank you! 

It's Official!

It's official! I am now  a DR. E.
The official letter was sent in April 23rd.
Alhamdulillah.
Thank you, all!

Dilema CGI, Bak Pisau Bermata Dua

Dimuat di ESQ Magz, Edisi Februari 2018.

Film Tourism Indonesian Style: The Cases of Laskar Pelangi and Eat Pray Love

by Ekky Imanjaya & Indra Kusumawardhana

COMMUNICARE Journal Vol 3 No 2 (2016).
Published: 21/03/2018

Link: http://journal.lspr.edu/index.php/communicare/article/view/17 

Abstract

Film-induced tourism becomes a new emerging issue in tourism and scholarly research for the last 10 years. London’s “Harry Potter” series and New Zealand’s “Lord of the Rings” are among the best practices of the trend. On the other hand, Indonesia is a country with many beautiful places to visit by both local and international tourists. The number of visitors increases significantly every year. However, there is no contribution from film industry, both from local or international production, related to this increasing numbers of tourists, not before national movie production “Laskar Pelangi, 2008” (Rainbow Troops, 2008) by Riri Riza, and international box office movie production “Eat, Pray Love, 2010”. The study research will discuss about film induced tourism issues in Indonesia, particularly on why and how the two films--so far, until recently, only those two films--became phenomenon in film tourism--and why other films did not.

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