Lifting The Pulung Gantung Myth, Death Knot Film Enlivens The Jakarta Film Week Festival

Jakarta Film Week 2021 Moviegoers

JAKARTA - The Death Knot film enlivens the Jakarta Film Week festival which will take place on 18-21 November 2021. At this film festival presented by the DKI Jakarta Provincial Tourism and Creative Economy Office, the audience also participated in a Death Knot question and answer session with director Cornelio Sunny.

Sunny revealed, this film was made based on a myth in Gunung Kidul. "There is a phenomenon known as Pulung Gantung, where people believe there is a mystical influence that makes people in the village hang themselves at certain times," Sunny said at CGV Grand Indonesia, Jakarta, quoted from ANTARA, Sunday, November 21.

This film festival screens national films and world cinema in two places, CGV Grand Indonesia and Metropole XXI, Jakarta. Another program that was also present was an online event with the theme Audience-Based Film Festivals. Several speakers who took part in this event included Jamalludin Phonna from the Aceh Film Festival, Sukhadharmi from UCIFEST, Nauval Yazid from Europe on Screen with the moderator Nada Bonang from the Film Community.

The discussion with these three speakers discussed how the pandemic brought changes to the organization of the festival. One of the changes is the implementation of a hybrid event, aka online and offline.

“Hybrids will be the new normal for film festivals. Indeed, nothing replaces the experience of watching communally, with other viewers and appreciating together. But when we go online we open ourselves up to a wider and more diverse audience, and many new ideas also come from working on film festivals online,” said Nauval Yazid, from Europe on Screen.

The film programs that attended were Global Feature, which featured feature-length films, Global Short, which featured screenings of short films, from Indonesia and internationally. Selected feature films and short films will compete to win the Global Feature Award and the Global Short Award.

There was also the Direction Award, a competition for Indonesian films that were screened during the festival. Another program that focuses on funding is the Jakarta Film Fund. The Jakarta Film Week program team selected five short film story ideas which then went through a mentoring process, directing movielab, scriptwriting, and image editing. All films were also screened during the festival, at CGV Grand Indonesia.

Other programs held during Jakarta Film Week include Masterclass for professional film workers. Held online on November 20, 2021, with speakers Mmabatho Kau and Sahana Kamath.