Pegiat dan peminat sinema alternatif dapat kembali menikmati tayangan-tayangan segar dan bertukar pengetahuan dalam festival tahunan ARKIPEL – Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival. Hadir mengusung tema homoludens, malam pembukaan ARKIPEL tahun ini diadakan di GoetheHaus, Goethe-Institut Jakarta pada Kamis, 9 Agustus 2018. Sejak sekitar pukul 19.00 sekitar 84 pengunjung dan 11 media undangan telah memenuhi lobi GoetheHaus dengan antusias.
Seremoni dibuka dengan resital piano oleh Dendang Belantara. Dalam kesempatan ketiganya memeriahkan malam pembukaan ARKIPEL, ia membawakan tiga komposisi piano dengan piawai: Tico-Tico No Fuba karya Zequinha Abreu, Turkish March karya Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dan Fur Elise in Ragtime karya komposisi Ethan Uslan. Pemilihan lagu-lagu ini dirasa tepat untuk menghayati semangat “bermain-main” Homo ludens, melalui ritme yang begitu dinamis dan kadang menggelitik. Penonton bertepuk tangan riuh setelah permainannya usai.
Selanjutnya, Direktur ARKIPEL Yuki Aditya memberikan pidato pembuka. Di tahun ini, festival terpaksa berlangsung di tengah keadaan duka. Yuki menyampaikan belasungkawa atas musibah gempa yang terjadi di Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, seminggu lalu, terutama bagi Komunitas Pasirputih yang merupakan bagian dalam berbagai kerja yang diinisiasi Forum Lenteng.
Yuki juga mengumumkan bahwa di ARKIPEL tahun ini, Forum Lenteng sebagai penyelenggara telah menginjak usia limabelas tahun. Tema yang dipilih, yaitu homoludens yang dapat diartikan sebagai “manusia yang bermain”, memiliki semangat yang sama dengan praktik berkesenian eksperimental yang dilakukan Forum Lenteng selama limabelas tahun terakhir. Melalui medium filem, penyelenggara ARKIPEL ingin menghadirkan kesempatan untuk belajar melihat, membaca, menuliskan kembali, dan mengorganisasikan hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan sinema melalui festival filem.
Di tahun ini, Forum Festival kembali mengundang partisipan-partisipan dari ranah komunitas, dalam rangka mengapresiasi inisiatif mereka dalam persoalan produksi dan distribusi film maupun pengetahuan tentangnya, yang menopang ekosistem perfileman Indonesia. Selain program penayangan, pameran Kultursinema yang memasuki usia kelimanya, di tahun ini berusaha merespon Asian Games yang akan datang. Pameran tersebut menggali kembali penyelenggaraan perayaan olahraga Asian Games 1962 dan Ganefo 1963 dari posisi kultural perhelatan tersebut dengan mengusung tema “Gelora Purnaraga”.
Dari tanggal 10 – 16 Agustus 2018, ARKIPEL homoludens akan menayangkan 82 judul filem. Dari program Kompetisi Internasional, sebanyak 21 filem terpilih dari 1.422 judul filem yang didaftarkan dari sekitar 80 negara di seluruh dunia. Selain program Kompetisi Internasional, filem Indonesia juga dikurasi dalam programnya tersendiri, Candrawala, untuk melihat peta perkembangan sinema nasional dan membaca refleksi sinematik dalam konteks lokal.
Di penghujung pidatonya, Yuki mengucapkan terima kasih kepada mitra-mitra penyelenggaraan ARKIPEL. Ia juga memperkenalkan para juri ARKIPEL homoludens, kurator tamu, serta para pembuat filem yang akan ditayangkan. Ia turut memanggil kawan-kawan Forum Lenteng yang telah membantu mengorganisasi perhelatan ARKIPEL homoludens ke atas panggung.
Hafiz Rancajale, selaku Direktur Artistik ARKIPEL dan pendiri Forum Lenteng, dalam sambutannya menyinggung pemilihan tema homoludens yang berkaitan dengan lima belas tahun perjalanan Forum Lenteng dalam “bermain-main”, mencari forma sinema yang tepat dalam kerja aktivisme hari ini. Baginya, homoludens mengembalikan sinema pada hakikat kemanusiaannya, di mana para pembuat maupun pembaca filem menguji kemungkinan-kemungkinan yang muncul dalam praktiknya. Ia juga mengungkapkan bela sungkawa atas musibah gempa yang menimpa Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat.
Selanjutnya, perwakilan dari tim selektor Kompetisi Internasional, Manshur Zikri, memberikan pengantar untuk filem pembuka festival. Filem-filem pembukaan ini, menurutnya, merupakan kumpulan narasi-narasi kecil yang berusaha menggali kultur khas yang ditangkap para pembuat filem, terlepas dari gelombang informasi dan adinarasi ideologi-ideologi. Filem-filem tersebut antara lain Songs of Fortune karya Veronica Burger, Good Tidings karya Sebastiano Luca Isinga, The Night Between Ali and I karya Nadia dan Laila Hotait, dan Sub Terrae karya Nayra Sans Fuentes.
Seremoni pun usai sekitar pukul 20.30. Para tamu berbondong-bondong keluar dari teater, menyebar di area selasar, yang diubah menjadi ruang proyeksi arsip filem-filem Ganefo dari pameran Kultursinema, maupun ruang terbuka GoetheHaus, di mana tamu-tamu dapat menikmati camilan dan minuman ringan sembari berbincang santai.
Salah satu partisipan Forum Festival, Fausto Keiluhu dari komunitas Liga Film Mahasiswa, Institut Teknologi Bandung, berpendapat bahwa tema homoludens yang diusung ARKIPEL tahun ini cukup menarik. Sebagai pegiat komunitas, tema homoludens yang didiskusikan dalam topik-topik Forum Festival pun cukup mudah ia cerna. Meskipun ia mengaku bahwa filem pembukaannya kurang menunjukkan gagasan “bermain” yang ia pahami, menurutnya filem-filem tersebut telah menunjukkan keberpihakan ARKIPEL kepada filem-filem yang segar dan eksperimentatif.
Yosep Anggi Noen, pembuat filem asal Yogyakarta yang memenangkan Jury Award di ARKIPEL Electoral Risk melalui karyanya, Genre Sub Genre, mengaku terus mengikuti perkembangan ARKIPEL hingga tahun keenamnya. “ARKIPEL adalah salah satu festival yang konsisten dalam memberikan penyegaran dan mendefinisikan ulang apa itu sinema bagi penonton Indonesia,” ujarnya. Ia juga menilai filem-filem pembuka yang ditayangkan “sensitif”, dalam artian mereka mengandalkan sensitivitas untuk melihat manusia sebagai penyebab bencana kemanusiaan.
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Alternative cinema activists and cinephiles can now enjoy refreshing films and exchange their knowledge of cinema in the annual ARKIPEL – Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival. Through the theme homoludens, the opening night of this year’s ARKIPEL was held in GoetheHaus, Goethe-Institut Jakarta on Thursday, August 9, 2018. Since 07.00 PM, about 84 audiences, including festival guests and about 11 media have filled up the GoetheHaus lobby enthusiastically.
The ceremony was started with a piano recital by Dendang Belantara. In her third time playing for the Opening Night of ARKIPEL, she skillfully presented three piano compositions: Tico-Tico No Fuba by Zequinha Abreu, Turkish March by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Fur Elise in Ragtime composed by Ethan Uslan. These choices of songs lived up to the spirit of playing in homoludens through their dynamic, titillating rhythms. The audience gave a hearty applause at the end of her recital.
Next up, the Director of ARKIPEL, Yuki Aditya, gave his opening speech. In this year, unfortunately, the festival has to take place amidst a sorrowful event. Yuki gave his condolences for the earthquake in Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat a week ago, especially for the Pasirputih community who has been part of many works initiated by Forum Lenteng.
Yuki also announced that this year’s ARKIPEL marks the fifteenth year of Forum Lenteng’s activism. The chosen theme, homoludens, meaning “the playing human”, lives up to the same spirit of the experimental practice in art that Forum Lenteng has been doing for fifteen years. Through film as a medium, ARKIPEL’s organizer wants to create the opportunity to learn to see, read, rewrite, and organize cinema-related things through this film festival.
As done in the previous years, Forum Festival welcomes the participants from film communities as an appreciation for their initiatives in cultivating the production and distribution of film and the knowledge of cinema, that supports the ecosystem of cinema in Indonesia. Besides screening programs, there is also the fifth Kultursinema exhibition, which stands as a response to the upcoming Asian Games. The exhibition re-examines Asian Games in 1962 and Ganefo in 1963 and their cultural positions, with the headline “Passion of the Perfect Body”.
During 10th-16th August 2018, ARKIPEL homoludens will screen 82 films. In the International Competition program, 21 films are selected from 1.422 films that are submitted from 80 countries around the world. The Indonesian films are also curated in a separate program, Candrawala, which aims to read the map of our national cinema and its reflections in the local context.
At the end of his speech, Yuki thanked the partners that have supported ARKIPEL this year. He also introduced the juries, guest curators, and filmmakers. As the closing, Yuki welcomed the members of Forum Lenteng who helped to organise ARKIPEL homoludens to the stage.
In the next speech, Hafiz Rancajale, as the Artistic Director of ARKIPEL and founder of Forum Lenteng, mentioned that this year’s theme, homoludens, relates to Forum Lenteng’s fifteen-year journey of “playing”, trying out forms of cinema in search of the one that fits the context of today’s activism. To him, homoludens brings back cinema to its human essence, in which the filmmakers and critics can examine the possibilities that emerge in its practice. He also gave his condolences regarding the earthquake that stroke Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat.
After that, Manshur Zikri as the representative of selectors for the International Competition program introduced the opening films selected from the International Competition films. He concluded that these films are small narratives trying to re-examine the local cultural findings captured by the filmmakers, apart from the influx of pieces of information and grand ideological narrations. Those films are Songs of Fortune by Veronica Burger, Good Tidings by Sebastiano Luca Isinga, The Night Between Ali and I by Nadia and Laila Hotait, and Sub Terrae by Nayra Sans Fuentes.
The ceremony was over by 08.30 PM. The guests queued out of the theatre and spread throughout the area of GoetheHaus: some of them stayed in the hallway, which had been projected by films from the archives of Ganefo, also displayed at the Kultursinema exhibition. Others went out to the open area, where they can chat while enjoying the food and drinks.
One of Forum Festival participants, Fausto Keiluhu from Liga Film Mahasiswa community, Institut Teknologi Bandung, thinks that this year’s ARKIPEL theme is quite interesting. As a community activist, he can easily relate to this year’s Forum Festival topics that were rooted from homoludens. Even though he expressed his confusion on the opening films that did not represent the notion of “playfulness” like he understands it, he regarded those films were adequate to serve ARKIPEL’s alignments on cultivating audience’s awareness on experimental cinema.
Yosep Anggi Noen, a Yogyakarta-based filmmaker whose film Genre Sub Genre won the Jury Award in ARKIPEL Electoral Risk, admitted that he always keeps the tab on this festival throughout the year. “ARKIPEL is one of the few (film) festivals that are consistent in their attempts to refresh and redefine cinema for Indonesian audiences,” he said. He also called out the opening films as “sensitive”, in which they require the audiences’ sensitivities to look at the humanity as the cause of our downfalls.
