Festival-Kyu

“You know it’s kinda nice to be with all these queers in the same room outside a club or a bathhouse for that matter…” a dear friend of mine said during the week of Jakarta’s Queer Film Festival. Even though I personally felt that the hype wasn’t as strong as the two previous q-festivals, nevertheless it was a pretty good event storming down Townsville at the end of August.



It was also a shame that during the same week my schedule had been as insane as can be imagined with work, life and other functions. First it was my brother’s birthday, then the ongoing and upcoming events that we had to supervise at work, friends’ birthdays and other parties to attend, another painting exhibition is on the way on top of that, and most of all, a new relationship was emerging on the horizon.

Not that I haven’t tried to squeeze my schedules to attend the anticipated screenings of the festival though. I was already there for the opening party (got bored and left by another hour). And again, I was there for the opening film, Eternal Summer -only to find out that the movie started at around 10 PM- in which wouldn’t accommodate my further engagements that night. I was there again Monday night in order to watch Tan Lines in Blitz -a little bit late- and as expected the tickets would all-been booked. So regretfully we simply went to see Rush Hour 3 instead (Chris Tucker at his utmost annoying being ever!).

At least I got to see the opening of a photo exhibition by Taguchi Hiroki at Japan Foundation on Monday. In which, was awesomely beautifully done, that I decided to utilize Sensen’s camera phone to capture the moments (see the exhibits below).

It was a still-preview -in a way- at the making of Hatsu-Koi, a Japanese entry for this year’s festival. I was even touched by the second show, Living Together, on how you would continue living with your life or with your friends who are positive with HIV/ AIDS in terms of: “We are still breathing and alive aren’t we? Now what do you want to make/ do with it?”. Then I remembered that there was an Indonesian term for this: “Nasi sudah menjadi bubur, sekarang tinggal mau dibikin jadi bubur apa?” (The rice in the boiler had unexpectedly turned into porridge; now what kinda porridge shall we make for dinner?).

On that note, I then promised meself, that before the festival ended, I would at least enjoy one screening that the organizers had held for us to watch. Saturday came, and since I had to be somewhere else that time, I missed Hatsu-koi all together. You had been waiting for the screening for the entire week and then something came up! I felt a pang in my heart. The only thing that would mend my broken heart (ah… the drama) was the sight of a huge mercenary-cum-night darling drag-queen who moved her lips to the tunes of “I’ve been to paradise but I never been to youu….” (and also the the nicely priced hardcore drinks) at the WestPac‘s closing party.

And an hour later a big dude by the acronym of JA said hi to us, “Hey how’s it going guys? Just got here now!” he said with a wide-grin on his face. We were like: “Yeah right! But anyway darling your make-up matches your amazing long dress and capes!”. Then suddenly Mister Dije said to me, “Dude, you never read the instructions, do you? There’s in fact another screening for Hatsu-Koi in Erasmus by 3 o’clock tomorrow”. For the love of anything Japanese, then I smiled back -in a very masculine way, while holding a straight from the bottle Heini- at a cute Japanese looking dude who was sitting at the sofa.

So there it was, Hatsu-Koi, very cute and cheeky, not as I would expect, but surprisingly welcomed. And best of all, the Japanese aforementioned happened to be the movie’s director, Imaizumi Koichi, who was there with his boyfriend (or at least the gestures said so), Iwasa Hiroki, the sound engineer.

By five another call descended on my cell, “I’ve secured two extra invites for the closing film. Be there or be squared!”. Great, I squeezed Guapo’s arm and drag him to the next show.

A long time ago, I’ve read the first of the series of books by the title Jakarta Undercover. I thought it was just interesting. Maybe the general public would be wowed by the so-called secrets that the city may hold post-sundown. It wasn’t any big secret for me though. Really, due to my reckless youth, ‘twas just one of those been there done that. Thus the so-so effect upon reading the book.

Now, it was another sweet surprise for me to see the movie, Jakarta Undercover, the second, and one of the only two movies I ever watched at this year’s festival. Very fast paced it was, as if the audiences weren’t given any chance to take a breather. Loved Fachri’s performance, loved the cinematography, the general acting could be better though. However, I had to give credits for Luna Maya who performed better than she ever did anywhere period (she could be better but hey, it was pretty good for a “model”).

While Eternal Summer, the opening show that I missed is being sold at Blitz now, I utterly missed the Bubble (gawd, where do I find thee from now on) and Kala (in which I hope would go into dvd-s… if ever!).


At the end I could only wish that the event was a success and I thank everyone in the organizations for providing a queer event that we, the community and the general public could enjoy together. I mean this event even sweetly outed two of my friends, Parasol and Neutrogena (willingly and unwillingly) to muggle friends and family members.

See you guys next year.

Note: Now I can at least give a half-smile looking at Dewi’s latest cover (with Luna Maya on it) better than my usual scolding smirk at her. Ah, she also works with NGO-s now… Good for her.