Arkipel - Jakarta International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival
ARKIPEL International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, held in Indonesia by Forum Lenteng. http://arkipel.org
This festival is a open space of cinema and media discourse in general, especially documentary and experimental film genre.
06/02/2026
[ANNOUNCEMENT - OPEN SUBMISSION]
https://arkipel.id
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13th ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival: The Damned of The Earth
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OPEN CALL FOR FILM SUBMISSION
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DEADLINE: 30 APRIL 2026
FREE
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Third spaces—within which the violence externalized from metropolitan colonialism takes form, such as plantations, prisons, and penal colonies—have historically nurtured the very fighters who seized their sovereignty. Yet the colonial legacy that produces borders and hierarchies, the categorization of human beings, and cultural imaginaries of inferiority continues to infiltrate modern sovereignty, which retains the capacity to decide who matters and who may be discarded. Once again, our world today is marked by mobilization and the mass displacement of people, whose spaces are eradicated by disasters generated by regimes of violence, no matter how elaborately grand theories of humanity are composed by their thinkers. The afflicted, the floating masses, the lumpenproletariat, the bromocorah, the wretched of the earth, and the multitude of other labels affixed to bodies haunting the regime all find their relevance here—both the living and the dead.
We are confronted with the massive expansion of forensic work on past atrocities—those long buried and those that occurred only seconds ago—circulating relentlessly through algorithms. The construction of novum, both juridical and speculative, is mobilized to challenge and dismantle terror as it continually reincarnates in the present. Necromantic practices are enacted to summon the dead to testify to their own murders and to the systems that sanctioned their annihilation. In cinema, such testimonies have long served as raw material, explored experimentally and instrumental in reshaping cinematic language across eras. In a time when cinema has become an internalized apparatus that transforms the technological behavior of humanity, how might it enable testimonies that are disruptive and experimental?
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Artwork: Milisifilem Kenanga
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22/01/2026
In Memoriam Our Beloved Cinema Comrade
YUKI ADITYA (1980-2026)
BUKAN SANDIWARA Kump**an Esai Kritik Film MTN Lab - Jakarta Buku ini merupakan hasil kolaborasi penulis muda dalam membaca film-film Indonesia periode 1980-2010. Rentang waktu ini menandai fase puncak, kejatuhan, hingga kebangkitan kembali perfilman Indonesia. Belum banyak kritikus yang menyoroti pe...
14/09/2025
ARKIPEL Award is given to the best film in general that, based on jury’s view, has the highest artistic achievement and a potential power to give meanings to its contextual perspective choice. By the content, all those aspects through the film’s visual expression should be successful in offering a newest representation of our contemporary world view as a challenging discourse for the general view over a certain situation revealed by the subject matter. The best film in this category particularly can be considered as representing ARKIPEL’s statement concerning the values offered by the passion and reason of a spirit of the time, becoming an inspiration for aesthetic creations about the world that on the one hand is approved of and on the other hand demands definition and re-definition.
ARKIPEL AWARD is awarded to We Are Inside (Director: Farah Kassem)
The Arkipel Award for cinematic excellence is presented to We Are Inside for its profound and nuanced navigation of the festival's theme, "Years of Living Dangerously." The jury found the film to be a masterful and deeply moving portrait of inheriting a world in a state of political unrest and navigating the intimate dangers within the domestic sphere. The film accomplishes a rare feat, weaving together the personal and the political with exceptional grace. It is a powerful study of intergenerational dialogue, love, and critique, set against the backdrop of Lebanon's upheavals. The director’s courageous and intimate approach to filming her father and their Sri Lankan domestic worker, Nana, creates a complex and raw depiction of relationships that avoids easy judgments. This complexity offers a vital space for study—a core tenet of this year's theme—on the politics of labor, family, and belonging within a fractured society.
Formally accomplished, the film’s construction is both sensitive and intentional, leaving space for uncomfortable yet necessary questions. We Are Inside stands as a potent statement on how we live with danger, not only in the streets but within the walls of our own homes, making it a truly deserving recipient of the Arkipel Award.
14/09/2025
The Jury Award is given to the best film of jury’s choice based on the consideration in terms of unique and fresh visual expression, personal maturity in revealing and communicating aesthetic experience, struggle over content and subjective exploration over text/context to its contemporary representation.
Jury Award is Awarded to: Perfumed With Mint (Director: Muhammad Hamdy)
The Jury Award is presented to Perfumed With Mint for its stunning originality, poetic force, and brilliant formal invention. The film creates a unique, suspended, and liminal space where a group of men gather, talk, and exist, generating a powerful and sophisticated critique through humor, sarcasm, and a deeply resonant poetics.
The jury was captivated by the film’s ability to construct a world that feels both specific and universally significant. Its Brechtian performance style and masterful control of pacing and composition create a hypnotic rhythm that explores themes of masculinity, friendship, and the unspoken frustrations of a generation. The film moves beyond mere representation, drawing on Egypt's rich history of surrealism to create a cinematic language that is entirely its own.
It is a film that is at once politically sharp, emotionally rich, and formally daring. By focusing on the "mycelial network" of conversation and connection, Perfumed With Mint offers a visionary and deeply poetic model for understanding collective life and resistance, earning it the recognition of the Jury Award..
14/09/2025
The Peransi Award for filmmakers under 30 is awarded to Wind Has No Tail for its incredible intimacy, sensitivity, and powerful critique of structural violence against indigenous communities. The jury was profoundly moved by the film’s immersive and respectful gaze into the daily life of a Nenets family in the Russian tundra.
The film accomplishes the difficult task of observing without exoticizing, presenting the brutal realities of a nomadic life—from the essential, visceral act of butchering a reindeer to the heartbreaking intrusion of state-mandated boarding schools—with a clear-eyed and compassionate lens. A stark observation of the camera was able to reach us with our preconceived notion on violence, between a total consumption of deer and the on-going practice of epistemological violence towards indigenous community. The co-directors’ deep connection with their subjects is palpable, creating a work that is both a beautiful cinematic achievement and a crucial political document.
It stands as a potent "anti-Flaherty" film that challenges colonial and ethnographic traditions, instead offering a perspective from within. For its courageous testimony to the resilience of a culture under threat and a crucial political document from a profoundly promising directorial voice, the jury gives Peransi Award to Ivan Vlasov and Nikita Stashkevich.
14/09/2025
Special Mention (Peransi): From Afar (Gilles Vandaele & Martijn de Meuleuinere)
A special mention is awarded to From Afar for its militant clarity and activist urgency. The film serves as a vital document, platforming the firsthand testimonies of men incarcerated in a Belgian detention center to deliver a powerful and unflinching indictment of systemic racism.
14/09/2025
Special Mention (Peransi): Sunshower (Micko Boanerges)
A special mention is awarded to Sunshower for its distinctive, meditative observation of a political moment. The film’s slow, daylight-noir aesthetic captures a generational experience of tension and powerlessness, marking its director as a unique and promising voice.
14/09/2025
The film reflects a profound awareness and an exacting discipline in its very act of bursting into anger—an anger that embraces historical materials as a form of response, materials that lie beyond established understandings, and a boldness to take political stance at such a young age. The world today, including its discourses, is shaped—among other forces—by the crossings of diasporas propelled by politics, economics, and war. For the young, the world is always new. It is the youth who invent the intersections of history, and it is they who burst into anger at its weight. Raras embodies these feelings of being a citizen of the world amid competing supremacies; she is a continuum that no map could ever delineate. To be young is to see, to act, and to be struck by mistakes—to err often, and through error, to become greater.
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Film ini merefleksikan sebuah kesadaran yang mendalam dan kedisiplinan yang ketat dalam tindakannya untuk meledakkan kemarahan—sebuah kemarahan yang merangkul materi-materi historis sebagai bentuk respons, materi-materi yang berada di luar pemahaman mapan, serta keberanian untuk mengambil sikap politik di usia yang begitu muda. Dunia hari ini, termasuk wacana-wacananya, dibentuk—antara lain—oleh perlintasan diaspora yang digerakkan oleh politik, ekonomi, dan perang. Bagi kaum muda, dunia selalu baru. Kaum mudalah yang menemukan perlintasan sejarah, dan merekalah yang meledakkan kemarahan atas bebannya. Raras mewujudkan perasaan-perasaan ini sebagai seorang warga dunia di tengah supremasi-supremasi yang saling bersaing; ia adalah sebuah kontinuum yang tak pernah dapat dijelaskan oleh peta. Menjadi muda berarti melihat, bertindak, dan terhempas oleh kesalahan—seringkali keliru, tapi justru melalui kesalahan itulah, ia bisa menjadi lebih besar.
13/09/2025
12/09/2025
[Special Presentation]
Milisifilem Kenanga
Proyek Gabo: Seratus Tahun Kesunyian
The Gabo Project: One Hundred Years of Solitude
180 minutes
Curated by Otty Widasari
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Novel Seratus Tahun Kesunyian (1967), karya penulis Kolombia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
atau Gabo, adalah penggambaran hasrat ekspansi yang berjalan beriringan dengan
perekembangan zaman di era penemuan-penemuan ilmiah. Macondo, sebuah kota fiktif,digambarkan sebagai sebuah jagat kecil kolonialisme yang dibangun di atas kerapuhanhubungan sedarah dan ditopang oleh tiang-tiang berahi. Trah keluarga Buendia digambarkandi dalam buku ini sebagai sebuah kompleksitas pertumbukan antara konteks kolonialisme,modernisme, pertumbuhan konservatisme dalam sebuah bangsa baru, libertarianisme, danperjalinannya dengan lokalitas beserta mitos-mitosnya.
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The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), by the Colombian writer Gabriel García
Márquez, or Gabo, portrays the desire for expansion that marched in step with the progressof its era, an age of scientific discoveries. Macondo, a fictitious town, is depicted as aminiature cosmos of colonialism—constructed upon the fragility of blood relations andupheld by pillars of desire. The Buendía lineage is presented as a site of collision: betweencolonialism, modernism, the rise of conservatism in a nascent nation, libertarianism, and itsinterweaving with locality and myth.
12/09/2025
[Special Presentation]
Milisifilem Kenanga
Proyek Gabo: Seratus Tahun Kesunyian
The Gabo Project: One Hundred Years of Solitude
180 minutes
Curated by Otty Widasari
_____
Novel Seratus Tahun Kesunyian (1967), karya penulis Kolombia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
atau Gabo, adalah penggambaran hasrat ekspansi yang berjalan beriringan dengan
perekembangan zaman di era penemuan-penemuan ilmiah. Macondo, sebuah kota fiktif,digambarkan sebagai sebuah jagat kecil kolonialisme yang dibangun di atas kerapuhanhubungan sedarah dan ditopang oleh tiang-tiang berahi. Trah keluarga Buendia digambarkandi dalam buku ini sebagai sebuah kompleksitas pertumbukan antara konteks kolonialisme,modernisme, pertumbuhan konservatisme dalam sebuah bangsa baru, libertarianisme, danperjalinannya dengan lokalitas beserta mitos-mitosnya.
—
The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), by the Colombian writer Gabriel García
Márquez, or Gabo, portrays the desire for expansion that marched in step with the progressof its era, an age of scientific discoveries. Macondo, a fictitious town, is depicted as aminiature cosmos of colonialism—constructed upon the fragility of blood relations andupheld by pillars of desire. The Buendía lineage is presented as a site of collision: betweencolonialism, modernism, the rise of conservatism in a nascent nation, libertarianism, and itsinterweaving with locality and myth.
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Ia catatan atau skena yang belum tuntas. Bahasa menjamakkannya ke dalam istilah-istilah lokal di masyarakat kita: gali, jago, weri, blater, jawara. Sedang di berbagai wilayah lainnya di dunia, ia lahir selaras dengan konteks sosio-politik dan ekonomi bangsa-bangsa yang berbeda. Konon, ia sejajar dengan bushranger (di Australia), highwayman (di Eropa), road agent (di Amerika Barat), atau cangaço dan pegiat clandestine (di Amerika Latin). Di suatu waktu ia berpihak kepada rakyat, di lain kesempatan ia berselingkuh dengan penguasa, di mayoritas masa ia memilih berdiri untuk dirinya sendiri. Diskursus Modernisme yang menelurkan beragam pranata sosial dan budaya, termasuk instrumen hukum, lantas mengerdilkan bromocorah menjadi istilah-istilah konstruktif yang sempit: pelanggar hukum, kriminal, preman, vigilante, ataupun residivis. Yang jelas, istilah-istilah itu belum mampu menopang luasnya kekhasan makna dari konsep bromocorah itu sendiri. Ia lebih layak dilihat dan dipahami sebagai fenomena yang terus berkembang daripada sekadar diartikan ke dalam definisi-definisi yang terbatas. Dalam setiap zaman, ia nyaris selalu ada meskipun tak pernah tampil di pusat, namun tidak p**a pernah hilang sama sekali dan dalam kondisi nadirnya ia berupa residu sistem yang tetap signifikan. Ia dengan caranya sendiri dapat mengelabui sistem, aparatus kekuasaan, elit intelektual, dan, bahkan, waktu. Ketidakpekaan kita dalam meresapi siasat kebertahanan bromocorah adalah pangkal bagi ketergelinciran ilmiah dalam jumudnya sistem.
Di Indonesia, bromocorah memainkan peran unik dalam perjuangan kemerdekaan, revolusi 1945, dan peristiwa misterius 1965. Sedangkan pada suatu rentang masa di era 1980-an, fenomena bromocorah menjadi polemik tatkala Petrus diterapkan sebagai strategi manajemen konflik—penguasa mengontrol masyarakat lewat kebijakan yang tak diakuinya secara formal, tetapi ada, nyata dialami, dan menjadi sejarah. Di lain gejala, menjelang kejatuhan dua rezim di negara ini, sebagian turunan bromocorah dikelola sebagai alat politik kaum elite yang mewujud menjadi berbagai organisasi masyarakat. Namun, makna bromocorah tetap abu-abu, ia tak sepenuhnya ditolak dan malah terus hidup berdampingan dengan elemen masyarakat lainnya. Kedinamisan masyarakat kita hari ini justru berkembang karena keberadaan dan persepsi masyarakat tentang bromocorah itu sendiri yang tak pernah statis. Membingkai bromocorah sebagai fenomena sastraik ketimbang testimoni historis akan dapat menjelmakan bromocorah sebagai sebuah “kemungkinan”. Seperti halnya diskursus seni bekerja, pembingkaian atas bromocorah dapat p**a berarti mengkonstruksi konsep progresivitas. Karena sifat kelabu dan karakteristik pesiasat ulung bromocorah, yang tidak serta-merta dapat diputuskan dalam dikotomi baik dan buruk, pada tingkatan tertentu menyiratkan kelenturan tafsir dan daya pikir spekulatif.
Progresivitas yang terkandung dalam konsep bromocorah bisa membukakan kita peluang untuk menyelaminya lebih dalam di ranah sinema. Sejak awal berkembangnya medium ini, bromocorah telah menjadi persoalan yang tidak jarang direspons dan membuahkan banyak eksperimentasi, baik dari segi modus penceritaan maupun dari modus bahasa visualnya. Bahkan, tidak sedikit gerakan-gerakan sinema dunia, termasuk di Indonesia sendiri, berkembang dan berhasil menawarkan sebuah lompatan estetis; hal itu seiring dengan usaha para pegiatnya dalam membingkai subjek-subjek dan medan sosial bromocorah, yang tiada henti menggelitik kanon-kanon sinema dan merangsang skeptisisme terhadap rezim pengetahuan mapan, sembari melemparkan pertanyaan kritis atas realitas sosial yang selalu dijerat oleh batasan-batasan moral dan etik, norma, dan standarisasi oleh sistem kekuasaan. Dengan melibatkan konsep bromocorah ke wilayah sinematik dan lantas menariknya kembali keluar dari alam estetika tersebut, kita mungkin dapat menoropong dan menerjemahkan gejala-gejala global terkini dan performativitas-performativitas kontemporer. Sebab, dengan meyakininya sebagai tanda yang hampir selalu ada pada setiap zaman, bromocorah menjadi kosa kata kultural yang melaluinya kita bisa melihat bagaimana sesungguhya Modernisme—induk bagi kelahiran sinema—bekerja pada diri kita.
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It is an “unfinished scene”. In Indonesian society, the term is pluralised into some local words: gali, jago, weri, blater, jawara. Meanwhile, its form of appearance in other parts of the world depends on the economic and sociopolitical context of different nations. It is supposedly as culturally alike as bushranger (in Australia), highwayman (in Europe), road agent (in West America), and cangaço or clandestine activists in (Latin America). He/she might side with the people at certain times, yet on another occasion, he/she could conspire with the authorities. At most times, however, he/she chooses to stand up for him/herself. The discourse of Modernism, which has hitherto been promoting various social and cultural institutions, including the legal institutions, restricts the word “bromocorah” into limited constructive terms: outlaw, criminal, preman (‘Indonesian gangster’), vigilante, or recidivism. Those terms are in fact inadequate to contain the vast characteristic of the decent meaning of the concept “bromocorah”. It is more sensible if we prefer to see and understand it as a changeable phenomenon rather than to determine it into narrow definitions. In every age, the bromocorahs almost always exist, even though they never appear as the central narratives, but they also never disappear entirely, and in their nadir of existence, they still constitute significant residues of a system. In their own way, they might trick the system, apparatus of power, intellectual elites, and, even, the time. Our insensitivity to absorb the bromocorah’s stratagem of survival means the beginning of the intellectual fallacy in this rigid system.
In Indonesia, the bromocorahs played a unique role during the struggle for independence, the revolution of 1945, and in the tragedy of 1965. While in the 1980s, the phenomenon of bromocorah came into polemics when an extrajudicial ex*****on, Petrus, was used as a government’s conflict management strategy—the governmental authority controlled the society through enforcement that it didn’t formally admit, but the event existed, was experienced, and has been part of Indonesian history. In other indications, ahead of the downfall of two political regimes in Indonesia, some of the derivatives of bromocorah were managed as elites’ political instrument which then manifest in the form of civil organizations. The dynamism of Indonesian society today is, in fact, developing because the existence of the bromocorah and our perception toward that concept itself are never static. To frame it as a poetic phenomenon rather than as historical testimony will transform bromocorah into a “potentiality”. Just like how the discourse of arts works, framing the bromocorah can also mean constructing the concept of progressivity. Because of bromocorah’s ambiguous nature and its characteristics as the tactician, which cannot necessarily be specified in good-and-evil dichotomies, to a certain degree implies flexibility of interpretation and speculative thinking.
The progressivity conceived in the concept of bromocorah can open us an opportunity to delve it deeper in the realm of cinema. Since the birth of cinema, bromocorah has become a subject matter that is frequently responded to and triggers a lot of experimentation, both regarding the mode of storytelling and the mode of visual language. In fact, in many cinema movements, including in Indonesia, the understanding of that concept grows and has succeeded in offering aesthetic leap. It is in line with the attempts of cinema activists to frame the subjects and social world of bromocorah, which perpetually teases the canons of cinema and stimulates skepticism towards the established knowledge regime. At the same time, they offer critical questions over social realities which are usually confined by moral and ethical boundaries, norms, and standardisation by the system of power. By encompassing the concept of bromocorah into the cinematic universe and then drawing it back again out of that aesthetic realm, we may be able to gaze and interpret current global symptom and contemporary performativities. Because, by believing it as a sign that almost always exists in every era, bromocorah becomes a cultural vocabulary through which we can see how actually Modernism itself — the birth mother of cinema — works upon us.
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