TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Four teams of two students each sit with eyes furrowed, focusing on their computer screens at a local public hall in Neuheun village, Greater Aceh.
The eight students are the selected participants for a week-long workshop on filmmaking. "I learned a lot about filmmaking here," said Rizkia Tarisa, a student at the Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (Islamic public high school) in Banda Aceh.
Rizkia and her team partner were hoping to finish a short documentary about Acehnese with the blood disorder Thalassemia. The pitch won them admittance into the competitive Aceh Documentary Junior (ADJ) 2016. Three other story ideas, a short on coffee farming in Atu Lintang, one on the tradition of singing the Doda Idi lullaby, and one on hatmakers in Reuman, were also chosen.
"In the first stage, there were 27 teams eligible to enroll in the program, each team with two members," said Munzir, ADJ 2016 program manager. He said 15 out of dozens of proposals were selected. The list was then cut down to seven. "Then, from the seven teams, we chose four that had the most potential to be turned into a movie," he said.
According to Munzir, none of the participants had much experience, making the one-week, free-of-charge filmmaking workshop run by the Aceh Documentary Community all the more important. "We facilitated them to finetune their story ideas to achieve the end result, which is a documentary," he explained.
Rizkia found out about the ADJ program from a former student at school. She said her participation had the full support of the teachers. "I felt lucky and proud to have this opportunity," she said.
The four documentaries will be screened in Aceh public schools and will compete in the Aceh Film Festival in October. "This is a way for us to develop the talents of young people in documentary film," said Munzir. (*)
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