Festival Film Indonesia 2006

The Indonesian equivalent for Academy Awards, Festival Film Indonesia with Piala Citra and Piala Vidya which serve as a substitute for Oscar statuette and Emmy awards, respectively. The final nominations would be announced on November 16th, 2006. But, the preliminary selection has been done and here's the result:

Film Cerita untuk Bioskop

Berbagi Suami, sutradara Nia Dinata (PT Kalyana Shira Film)

Denias, Senandung di Atas Awan, sutradara John De Rantau (PT Alenia Film)

Ekskul, sutradara Nayato Fio Nuala (PT Indika Cipta Media)

Garasi, sutradara Agung Sentausa (PT Miles Production)

Heart, sutradara Hanny R. Saputra (PT Kharisma Starvision)

Jomblo, sutradara Hanung Bramantyo (PT Sinemart Pictures)

Lentera Merah, sutradara Hanung Bramantyo (PT Rapi Film)

Mendadak Dangdut, sutradara Rudy Soedjarwo (PT Sinemart Pictures)

Opera Jawa, sutradara Garin Nugroho (PT Karya Set Film)

Ruang, sutradara Teddy Soeriatmadja (PT Parama Entertainment Picture)

Okay, that's an oddball, and weird interesting selection. Logically when those films mentioned above were going through a preliminary selection, those films were the Indonesian top-10 films in 2006 (according to the FFI comittee, at the very least). Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. But wait a second, Heart? Lentera Merah? Ekskul? okay, i'm not a big fan of Indonesian cinema, but as a legal Indonesian citizen, it's only appropriate for me to keep a close eye to the struggling film development in Indonesia and i knew, more than knew that Ekskul was a B-film material, at best. With stupid acting, pretentious shoots, obscure theme (blatant adaptation of a school-shooter there in the U.S) which still puzzled me on how those producers decided to easily projected, literarly translated the U.S youth culture into Indonesian?. And, one more thing, if you were suddenly decided to went to local cinema to catch Indonesian cinema, please made sure that the director wasn't Nayato OR Koya Pagayo (they're the same person). Spare your sanity.

Lentera Merah was an 'interesting' selection as well. I had a huge intuition that the comittee or whoever responsible in the selection process had only read two or three pharagraphs of each films before made their selection and not even bothered to watch each films. It's the only logical explanation. Lentera Merah was set on 1967 where there was a major shift in Indonesian government at the time. Now, i believe that the comittee only sees the word '1967' and thought, 'Ah, this must be about the communists and stuff'. In truth, even Hanung Bramantyo was puzzled and said that Lentera Merah was solely made for screaming pleasures of those kids who ditched school on Monday evening. It's a corny, light, horror (wait, horror fans, when i said horror here, it means that i refer to MODERN Indonesian horror - Suzanna was genuinely frightening, but that was like twenty / thirty years ago), and had nothing to do with 1966-1967 whatsoever. Yeah, that must be it. Otherwise, my logical circuit would bust on fire.

Now, where's Realita, Cinta, dan Rock 'n Roll? if i had to chose which Indonesian film i enjoyed the most in 2006, it's Realita, Cinta, dan Rock 'n Roll, the relatively unknown punk-film which wasn't that successful because it doesn't involve any ghosts, or spirit manifestation. If you hadn't watch the film, go see it. I recommend it. Indosiar would aired it, soon.

I would regard FFI as a rubbish even more than i spit on Academy Awards ceremony, if Barry Prima (Realita, Cinta, dand Rock 'n Roll) didn't get nominated as a best-actor (he should win it, by the way).

Check this blog for the official nomination later on.