Scholarship / Leadership and Influence Chevening: On Film as a universal language of progress [5]

Leadership & Influence Question

Chevening is looking for individuals who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

I had love film since High School, yet my concern for Indonesian cinema first started when I volunteered for an International documentary film festival, FFD. I started to learn the potential growth of Indonesian cinema in the eye of the world. After only a year volunteering at Festival Film Dokumenter Yogyakarta (FFD) in 2011, I was offered a position as a Program Manager, in which I was demanded to create comprehensive programs and manage a team to work together to achieve the goals of the program. I decided to take this offer as I feel that I can contribute more being a manager of a program.

My general mission as a program manager in Festival Film Dokumenter is to create programs that aim to help the development of film infrastructure and discourse on documentary films. Thus, I initiated a Masterclass program focusing on developing good story materials for Indonesian filmmakers in 2015 and 2016. We always received numbers of film submission to the festival, yet only few films we deemed worthy to enter our competition. Masterclass wanted to resolve this gap between quantity and quality. This format of masterclass has never been created before, so that was a trial and error for me. I had to educate myself as well to educate my team to prepare a successful Masterclass. Together, we managed to fund this program and invited some prominent mentors in documentary filmmaking from India, the Netherlands, Thailand, and the United States. The result of this masterclass was really encouraging; two films were selected as the nominees for Festival Film Indonesia. Now, the alumni of the Masterclass are continuing to pursue their career in documentary filmmaking.

My short film "Prenjak" was awarded as the best short film at Cannes Film Festival's Critics Week. It was the first Indonesian film ever received an award from Cannes film festival. This film received positive responses from Indonesian audiences, moreover, when we presented the behind the scene story of this production. This is a film that we made based on our spirit to create a good art, despite many limitations we have. Our production house, Studio Batu is only a small collective community, even we did not own a camera back then. As a line producer and assistant director, I must find a way to get this film produced. We had to borrow almost all equipment from our friends or their parents. I negotiate with the casts and crew regarding the payments because we have limited budget. Yet, despite all those conditions, we manage to make Indonesia proud with our achievement.

I always want to encourage, educate, and inspire people with all of my works, both as a programmer in Film Festival and as filmmaker. It is my strategic move to develop the cinema environment in Indonesia. Film is a product of culture that represents the identity of a country and I want to continue to make a greater achievement for Indonesia.

Scholarship / Chevening Networking Question - Global Film Network, being a film festival programmer and filmmaker [4]

Networking Question

Chevening is looking for individuals ...

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

Networking is an essential matter in my line of work as a film festival programmer and filmmaker. FFD, an international-level film festival, must continue to maintain and enlarge its connection with both national and international/global film networking. As a program manager, I play a vital role in maintaining and developing our network. I managed to invite BRITDOC Foundation, Dutch Embassy, American Embassy, BEKRAF Indonesia, and DMZ Docs Korea to collaborate in our Masterclass program. The collaboration generated mutual advantages from both parties. The masterclass participants had the chance to consult their projects with the guest mentors as well as our partners who had special slot in the festival to showcase their products. I perceived this collaboration as a valuable network to furthermore developing the goals in international cultural diplomacy. With the current event held by British Council together with Indonesian Government such as UK/ID Festival, I see this networking can be a valuable asset in the future years.

Festival is a melting pot for film professionals and a strategic place to gain new connection. I also actively get in touch with every festival's guests. This effort provided me a better understanding and updated news on the cinema from all over the world. For this endeavour, I managed to get invited to a Film Archiving Workshop held by Thai Film Archive for the archivists in Southeast Asia after promoting my archiving activity in FFD. By attending this program, I was able to gain valuable knowledge to be shared with my fellow archivists in FFD and of course I gained new connection with Southeast Asian film archivists.

As a filmmaker, I have numbers of chances to attend international festivals that selected my film in their program such as Cannes International Film Festival and Singapore International Film Festival. I used this occasion to promote my film to international film programmers which made my film get screened in other festivals as well. My connections with film programmers also benefited my new project promotion and platform finding for the premieres as well as screenings. From all benefit on the networking, I also managed to have Riri Riza, Indonesian prominent figure in cinema and also a Chevening Alumni, as one of my referees.

If I received the Chevening Scholarship, I will use the opportunity to become an ambassador to promote film culture between Indonesia and the UK. Through this cultural diplomacy, we can achieve a better understanding as a nation and to learn from one to another.

Scholarship / STUDY IN THE UK - CHEVENING - SUITABLE UNIVERSITIES AND NON-ACADEMIC LEARNING [3]

Studying in the UK Question

Outline why you have selected your chosen three university courses, and explain how this relates to your previous academic or professional experience and your plans for the future.

*Please do not duplicate the information you have entered on the work experience and education section of this form (minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)\

In 2015, I was graduated with BA degree from English Literature Universitas Gadjah Mada, one of the best university in Indonesia. Despite my education background, I am currently working and involved in many film festival/filmmaking activities. As a no film student, I realize that my education background is having its own distinct touch in my process of creating films. However, I still need to learn further about these two field I am currently working at. Therefore, I choose three universities that I believe will help me to build my capacity on both fields. After winning a prestigious international award in Cannes Film Festival, I feel the needs to enhance my capacity to compete at this higher stage of my career.

My first choice is Literature and Cinema course by University of Essex. This course fits my aim to develop my knowledge on the relation on both fields. In addition, even though this is a course by the Literature department, it still offers some practices on filmmaking, which I never learnt formally. This way, I can both enhance my knowledge in academic discourse as well as my skills in filmmaking.

Screenwriting for Film and Television course at The Royal Holloway University of London becomes my second choice as it provides a strategic knowledge to enhance my screenwriting skills. I have developed my basic skills in writing since my enrollment in my BA. This time I want to specify my skill on writing for film or television, moreover as I am currently developing my first feature-length film script. I hope by studying this course I will be able to write good scripts to be produced in the upcoming years.

The University of York is my third choice, with its Literature and Cinema course. The course in University of York offers more in-depth discourse between these different yet related fields of studies. Studying here will help me to enhance my critical thinking for this discourse, as well as my research skills. This particularly important as I also aspire to become a teacher. This study will help me grow as a good academician, by indulging myself with many scholarly researches and seminars presented in this course.

Aside from studying in the university, I also want to learn from local communities or any other organizations which concerned with the development of cinema in the UK. I think this is as important as studying in the class because I can also learn about British culture and society. As a Chevening Scholar, I will utilize all the privileges offered to me to the fullest to study. I want to become an agent of culture and the bridge between Indonesia and the UK. By having a better understanding of British culture, I hope I can create a mutual projects/program that will benefited for both countries cultural enrichments.

Scholarship / CAREER PLAN - CHEVENING - KICKSTART A FILM INDUSTRY [4]

Career Plan Question

Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline ...

After finishing my study, I will continue to work for FFD. First, as a program manager, I intend to make more collaborative programs with the UK government in terms of promoting both Indonesian and British documentary films. I am hoping to increase Indonesian audience's media literacy with films from the UK and as well introducing Indonesian documentary to the UK audience. This exchange can become a vessel for the UK government's cultural mission in Indonesia, as this is also aligned well with the mission of other festival such as UK/ID festival.

I also want to take my Masterclass program to the latter stages. With the knowledge I gained from my study, I am hoping to create better programs and more sophisticated curriculum in my Masterclass. The next step of this Masterclass is to create film funding program for the best participant's project. This way, the festival can start to create a well-rounded environment on film cycle; production - distribution/exhibition - archiving. This is a beginning to make a sustainable environment for film infrastructure. We have worked with the British Council in the past festivals on different program and I think this Masterclass program can be a good highlight for UK Government in developing film industry in Indonesia.

I also plan to start producing my first feature film. A feature film is not a one-man project. Therefore, I will use all the resources I gained during my study and in network-building to realize my project. I will establish a collaboration with the UK government regarding the production of my feature film. It can be in form of funding, distribution, or exhibition. Producing good films that can be recognized by international community is one of my effort to promote Indonesian cinema to the wider audience.

Teaching is one of my direct contribution to the younger generation in my country. Teaching the promising younger generation film/non-film student is one of a process to keep the film infrastructure running. I want to help the young generation of Indonesian filmmakers to reach their full potential by sharing what I have learned as a Chevening Scholar and a professional.

For my longer term plan, I want to contribute more by popularizing film as one of the tools of education. Currently, my festival holds a collection of films since the beginning of the festival in 2001. I see this archive as a treasure of knowledge that should be accessible by people. Me and my team currently working on the complete data of the films and for limited online preview. Furthermore, I want to create a proper storage as well as access room for this archive.

I am sure that I'm on the right track to achieve my mission to create a sustainable and strong film infrastructure in Indonesia. Chevening scholarship will become a foundation to prepare myself for the challenges in the future, to motivate people to work together in achieving the goals, and create a solid network that will benefited my career and the Chevening community.