Last Updated on January 7, 2019
I know this will be so un-updated because the event was in Monday and I’m writting this on a Sunday. So, whatever, to relieve my guilt I’ll write it anyway. :p
On Monday, January 21, 2013, once again I participated in another one of IPB great events. This time it was in collaboration with Kompas. It was the screening of the Atambua 39° Celsius in Auditorium Andi Hakim Nasution. To top things off, the producer and director of the movie, the famous Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza was also present in the screening! 🙂 What makes this event so special? Another question may also pop in into your mind, how come we have never heard of this movie before? Well it is because that it has a limited distribution and screening. It was only played in 20 cities. The funding for the film was also limited, but through wujudkan.com they made it happen. Also, it’s because this is the first time Atambua 39° Celsius was played in a University, and IPB is the lucky host of that. Awesome, as usual! :3
The event started with a preview of KompasTV shows regarding travelling and nature. One TV show that got my attention is 100 Hari Keliling Indonesia. So it documents the host, Ramon, in trying to take up a challenge of spending only 100 days going around Indonesia, from one big island to the next. The catch? He can only use public transportation! They also have twitter account for the viewers to keep track on him now. It’s @100HKI and it’s pretty interesting.
Then we had lunch, the MC gives out few, well a lot, of prizes and back to the main topic, Atambua 39° Celsius. We watched the movie, in my opinion it was a pretty tough movie to “digest”. First it was set in Atambua, a region in the Indonesia-Timor Leste border, and to keep it very natural, the movie was shot in their local language. The movie does not have a lot of dialogues in them, so sometimes we have to guess what was going on, especially in the beginning.
The story revolves around a boy called Joao, who lives in Atambua. He was seperated from his Mom, since his Dad took him to live in Indonesia while his Mom stayed in Timor Leste. It shows his everyday live living with his Dad, who seems to be a heavy drinker. It also shows the story of Nikkia, a girl that Joao seems to have a liking to. She is struggling alone to finish her grandpa’s passing away ritual. That’s when they get together and just spend time. On the other hand, Joao’s Dad got in some trouble and apparantly lost his job plus go to jail for a couple of days. Things happen like Nikkia went away, Joao went looking for her ad Joao’s Dad went looking for Joao. In the end, Joao and his Dad finally want back to reunite with Joao’s Mother and sister in Timor Leste.
It was pretty sad to see the ending. The story shows that Joao’s Dad has high hope in Indonesia and wishes that someday Timor will unite with Indonesia again. However, that didn’t happen. And their lives were not at all properous in Indonesia, the land that they put their hope in. When finally, the decision was made to reunite the whole family and moving back to Timor. It was pretty heart wrecking to see that. You see people in Indonesia’s border who are constantly facing unbearable condition. In the end, they give up and move away to settle for a better future. 🙁 You can’t blame them for moving away and see them in some form to be un-nasionalist.
Regardless on who to blame, I think it is important that young people and just leaders see the truth in these borderline areas. You have to see what the problem is before you can come up with solutions. You have to understand before you try to fix things. By making this film, hopefully people will understand and see the reality in those areas. It’s not the same glamor and glitz of the Indonesian big cities.
I’m glad I got to see the movie, it really opens up my horizons and let me see another part of Indonesia that I haven’t seen before. Hopefully after this, creative minds will do something to make things better. 🙂 Oiya, there were also Q&A session with Mbak Mira & Mas Riri. However, I didn’t attend it all, due to some work I have to do. (Tell you more about that later). So, overall thank you for IPB and Kompas for making this happen. 🙂
For more about Atambua 39° Celsius :
http://wujudkan.com/projects/detail/1/atambua
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoL8Qw8slt0 (Trailer)
http://filmindonesia.or.id/movie/title/lf-a023-12-593103_atambua-39-derajat-celcius#.UQQZUfLfFnk
