Prof. Reiko Tahara’s course “New Currents in Documentary” will host a renowned Indonesian-Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich as a guest filmmaker. Please contact Prof. Tahara by Friday morning if you are interested in attending the screening and talk.
Tuesday, March 12, at 6:30pm, HN 436 (TV Studio)
The event is sponsored by the IMA department.
Mr. Helmrich is known for a trilogy that closely followed a Christian family in mostly Islamic neighborhood of Jakarta for over 12 years. For this trilogy, he won the top award at IDFA twice (Joris Ivens Award 2004 and VPRO/IDFA Award for Best Feature Documentary 2011) and Grand World Documentary Award (2005) and Special Jury Award (2011) at Sundance. His films are unique not only for his signature filming technique named “Single Shot Cinema” (http://www.singleshotcinema.com/), but also for his quiet observational gaze that has lyrically reflected the changing Indonesia (the fall of Suharto, globalization, and the rise of extremist type of Islam in response). His films are funny, sad, warm, and spectacular. We will watch “Position Among the Stars”, the last of the trilogy made in 2011, which won the IDA Humanitas Doc Award and a nominee for the European Film Academy for Best European Documentary of 2011, in addition to his awards at Sundance and IDFA.