ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival

In its third occasion, ARKIPEL will present the theme GRAND ILLUSIONwhich departs from a film produced in 1937 by one of the world cinema masters, Jean Renoir. The idea of this film was coming from the bookThe Great Illusion, A Study of the Relation of Military Power to National Advantage by Norman Angell in 1910. The book was about humane criticism during World War I. Renoir and Angell’s idea was to look at how the problem of humanity in our civilization had been banished by conflict and political choices.

GRAND ILLUSION is a very relevant and important theme to be presented in the upcoming ARKIPEL 2015. On one side, it refers to the quite good development of democracy in Indonesia these recent years and also to the dynamic situation of international socio-political sphere. However, on the other side behind it all there are still lots of humanity issues in the history of this nation that have not been solved yet. The history of humanity is blanketed by several socio-political interests and the power of capital. The history of humanity is still clouded to maintain the power of certain groups.

Then how the role of cinema to look at this production of socio-political illusion since its birth in our civilization? Illusion was already a key word of cinema since the get-go. The celluloid recording had mesmerized the human civilization and gave the moving image experience that was unimaginable beforehand. The illusion produced by cinema at the end was developed not only in the aesthetic (form) field, but also utilized to produce illusions related to socio-political, cultural, and economic issues. This is what ARKIPEL going to read and present at the ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival 2015.

Indonesia as one of the nations which socio-political history is full of illusion; illusion that was produced by the Country. GRAND ILLUSION is becoming a strategy for ARKIPEL to read how the illusion was produced, distributed, and reproduced to its effect on the journey of nations in other parts of the world.

The 3^rd ARKIPEL film festival is not only an event for filmmaker, but also for film curator to pouring thought, idea, and creativity regarding this year’s theme, GRAND ILLUSION. Both submissions will be opened for three months until May 8, 2015 to provide opportunities of broad interpretation of the film festival theme—the scope ranges from domestic to mass matters, and because cinema has an ability to explore the border between reality and illusion