We present a list of fifteen films you shouldn’t miss at the 14th Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival which will take place from November 19th – 23rd (2019) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

About the festival:
The Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF) is a premier Asian film festival in Indonesia focusing on the development of Asian cinema. This festival not only contributes to introducing Asian cinema to a wider public in Indonesia, but it also provides a space for the intersection of many sectors such as arts, culture, and tourism.

Since its inception, JAFF has worked closely with NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema), a worldwide organization of 30 member countries. Headquartered in Colombo Srilanka, NETPAC is a pan-Asian film and cultural organization involving critics, filmmakers, festival organizes and curators, distributors and exhibitors, as well as educators. It is considered a leading authority in Asian cinema.

Selected Films:

Dua Garis Biru by Gina S. Noer – Indonesia | 2019 – 112 minutes
Section: JAFF Indonesian Screen Awards

DARA (Zara JKT48) and BIMA (Angga Yunanda) may not be the perfect lovers, but they are friends who completes each other. Where both of them can be themselves, ignorance can be laughed at, and fragility doesn’t need to be covered up. Comfort is more than just the word care or love. The age of 17 has never been this perfect. Until a new courage emerged between them. They both broke the line without knowing the consequences. Bima and Dara tried to take responsibility because of their choice. They thought they were ready to become adults, to face all the consequences. However, of course their naiveté was immediately tested when their families who really loved them found out, and forced their way into their chosen journey..

Screening:
November 21st (Thursday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 16:00 pm (With Q&A)

Trailer:

Empu (Sugar on the Weaver’s Chair) by Harvan Agustriansyah – Indonesia | 2019 – 60 minutes
Section: Asian Perspectives

This film tells the story of three women in three regions in Indonesia in redefining their destiny. SUTRINGAH, is the wife of a palm sugar tapper from Banyumas. As a family of sugar palm tapper, her life continues to dwindle away by economic difficulties and exacerbated because her husband is totally paralyzed due to an accident when tapping. Sutringah is faced to the process of defining her role as a woman, a wife and a breadwinner. YATI, a woman with a disability, worked all her life for her family’s business in lurik artisans in Klaten, Central Java. Yati then redefines her destiny when her idealism is conflicted with her father and also when her existential need within her cries out. Yati later decided to work in a garment factory to get what she dreamed of. MARIA, a widow from the village of Kefa in East Nusa Tenggara along with other widows, redefine their destiny as women in passing along weaving tradition to the youth around them. Even when their initiative collides with the customs that are not in favour to them.

Screening:
November 22nd (Friday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:00 pm (With Q&A)

Trailer:

Gundala by Joko Anwar – Indonesia | 2019 – 123 minutes
Section: JAFF Indonesian Screen Awards

Young Sancaka has been living in the streets since both parents left him. Going through a tough life, Sancaka grows up and survives by minding his own business and shelter his own safe place. When the city comes to its worst state and injustice looms throughout the country, Sancaka finds himself at an intersection, to remain in his comfort zone or arise as a hero to defend the oppressed.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 10:00 am (With Q&A)

Trailer:

House of Hummingbird by Bora Kim – South Korea | 2018 – 138 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Seoul in 1994, a lonely 14-year-old Eun-hee moves through life like a hummingbird searching for a taste of sweetness wherever she may find it. Deprived of attention from her family, she roams the neighborhood with her best friend, attempts romantic relationships with both girls and boys alike and is sent to the hospital with an unclear diagnosis. When Young-ji, a new teacher, arrives, she becomes the first adult Eun-hee feels really understands her.

Screening:
November 21st (Thursday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 19:00 pm
November 23rd (Saturday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 10:00 am

Trailer:

Lakbayan by Brillante Mendoza, Lav Diaz, Kidlat Tahimik – Philippines | 2018 – 118 minutes
Section: Asian Perspectives

{Lakbayan} tells three tales of Filipino journey. An unemployed cameraman joins a protest march of farmers asking the government to help them reclaim their ancestral land stolen by the powerful in {Desfocado}. It is also the powerful that controls an island where a young miner contests the problems and the status quo in {Hugaw}. A mosaic artist is empowered as he arrives at his destination while traveling from island to island in {Kabunyan’s Journey}.

Screening:
November 22nd (Friday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 19:10 pm

Trailer:

Liway by Kip Oebanda – Philippines | 2018 – 104 minutes
Section: Asian Perspectives

Liway” is the true story of a mother raising her child as normally as possible in a prison camp for rebels during the Marcos dictatorship. She tells fantastic stories, sings songs and plays with his imagination. She starts to doubt if living inside the camp is best for the child. As Martial Law ends, prison life deteriorates under a dictatorial new warden. The family is split apart. Protecting her child becomes increasingly difficult.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 19:10 pm

Trailer:

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom by Pawo Choyning Dorji – Bhutan | 2019 – 109 minutes
Section: Asian Perspectives

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom was shot on location in the world’s most remote school, the Lunana School; which is located in the Himalayan glaciers, an 8-day trek from the nearest motor able road. Due to the remoteness and lack of facilities of the principal location, the film was shot on solar energy. The film features local highlanders, many of whom had never seen the modern world outside their village, in leading roles.

A young teacher in modern Bhutan, Ugyen, shirks his duties while planning to go to Australia to become a singer. As a reprimand, his superiors send him to the most remote school in the world, a village called Lunana, to complete his service. He finds himself exiled from his Westernized comforts after an arduous 8 day trek just to get there. There he finds no electricity, no textbooks, not even a blackboard. Though poor, the villagers extend a warm welcome to their new teacher, but he faces the daunting task of teaching the village children without any supplies. He wants to quit and go home, but he begins to learn of the hardship in the lives of the beautiful children he teaches, and begins to be transformed through the amazing spiritual strength of the villagers

Screening:
November 22nd (Friday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 16:10 pm

Trailer:

Nakorn-Sawan by Puangsoi Aksornsawang – Thailand | 2018 – 76 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

“Nakorn Sawan”, which literally means “Heaven City” in Thai, is the name of a province north of Bangkok. It is the place where the Ping and Nan rivers merge to form Chao Phraya, the main river running through Bangkok. Believed by many Thais to be the gateway to heaven, it is the place where the characters in the film convene to send their loved one to the afterlife. Weaving together documentary footage of her mother and father—who separated when the director was a young teenager—and a fictionalized narrative performed by young actors, the film is a delicate meditation on love, loss and memory.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 16:10 pm
November 22nd (Friday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:10 pm

Trailer:

Ode to Nothing by Dwein Baltazar – Philippines | 2018 – 93 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

Sonya is an old maid stuck in a town that long ceased to recognize her existence but only until one fateful morning when a mysterious corpse arrives at the footsteps of their family owned funeral shop. Bringing forth strange luck and fortune, Sonya instantly gets drawn to the corpse’s mystique, reinvigorating not only her life but also that of her father Mang Rudy. But luck would eventually dry up, provoking further distress back to Sonya’s life. She faces the reality that her existence is nothing more that of the corpse, at the tail end of its mortality staring life wither away.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:00 pm
November 23rd (Saturday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:10 pm

Trailer:

Tehran: City of Love by Ali Jaberansari – Iran | 2019 – 102 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

An ex bodybuilding champion now personal trainer, finds secret excitement in his life when he accepts to train a young man for the championships; An overweight beauty clinic secretary who lacks confidence in her physical appearance, uses her sexy voice to create a persona for seducing men she feels she could never have; and a dispirited religious singer tries his luck at becoming a wedding singer to increase the chances of finding the love of his life. This is the bittersweet tale of three middle-aged disenchanted characters yearning for love in a city that does not embrace them

Screening:
November 21st (Thursday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 10:00 am
November 23rd (Saturday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 16:10 pm

Trailer:

The Cave by Tom Waller – Thailand | 2019 – 104 minutes
Section: Asian Perspectives

When a soccer team of 12 boys, aged 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach is trapped deep inside a cave in Northern Thailand, thousands of volunteers and soldiers from around the world unite in a race against time to find them. Once the boys are found alive ten days later, the only way out is an impossible five-hour dive-swim that only expert cave divers could survive. The world watches as retired Thai Navy Seal Saman Kunan swims in… and drowns. The cave has shown its teeth, there was no telling who would come out alive. In Ireland, airplane factory engineer and recreational cave diver Jim Warny gets the call: “How soon can you be here?” Having said goodbye to his family, Jim steps off the plane and into the cave – a knife-edge three-day mission is underway. Based on true events, THE CAVE tells the thrilling story of the largest international rescue mission of modern times, from the unique perspective of men and women facing life-and-death decisions and displaying selfless determination and sacrifice, culminating in a triumphant outcome against all the odds.

Screening:
November 22nd (Friday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 19:00 pm

Trailer:

The Sweet Requiem by Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam – India, Tibet | 2018 – 91 minutes
Section: Asian Perspective

Dolkar, a 26-year-old exile Tibetan, lives in Delhi. 18 years ago, she escaped from Tibet with her father, making a perilous trek across the Himalayas that ended in tragedy. Dolkar has suppressed all recollection of that traumatic incident. But when she unexpectedly encounters Gompo, the guide who abandoned them during their journey, memories of her escape are reignited and she is propelled on an obsessive search for retribution and closure. Following Gompo through the claustrophobic alleys of the Tibetan refugee colony in Delhi, Dolkar discovers that Gompo faces his own personal crisis. Flashbacks of her desperate journey with a small group through a harsh and desolate Himalayan terrain punctuate her growing predicament in the present. Caught in a web of political intrigue that is much larger than her private quest, Dolkar must reconcile Gompo’s act of treachery with the life-or-death situation he now faces. The two stories moving in tandem, both determined by a series of fateful choices, reach their conclusion as Dolkar and Gompo finally confront each other.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 10:10 am

Trailer:

The Wall by Boonsong Nakphoo – Thailand | 2018 – 93 minutes
Section: Asian Perspective

During the location scouting of his latest film, a stubborn filmmaker experiences many things. He sees reality in the present, reality in the past, dreams, expectations and the mysterious dark side that he tries to hide and run away from it. Everything comes back and attacks him.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:10 pm

Trailer:

Verdict by Raymund Ribay Gutierrez – Philippines | 2019 – 126 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

Joy and her six-year-old daughter Angel live in Manila, with her husband, Dante, a small-time criminal. As so often in the past, Dante comes home drunk at night and beats Joy brutally. This time, he also hurts Angel. Joy grabs her daughter and flees to the local police post to finally get him sent to jail. Justice, Joy learns, takes time at best and is impossible to get at worst. Not without reason, she feels that she and her daughter are increasingly under threat.

Screening:
November 21st (Thursday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 16:00 am
November 23rd (Saturday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 13:00 pm

Trailer:

Wet Season by Anthony Chen – Singapore | 2019 – 103 minutes
Section: Golden & Silver Hanoman Awards

It is Monsoon season in Singapore and the city is pouring with rain. Wet Season follows the plight of Ling, a Chinese language teacher, whose marriage and school life are fraying apart because she is unable to bear a child. But an unlikely friendship with a student helps her reaffirm her identity as a woman.

Screening:
November 20th (Wednesday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 19:00 pm
November 23rd (Saturday) | Empire XXI and LPP Yogyakarta | 10:10 am

Trailer:

For more information about the programme please visit the official website of the festival: Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival