ALFF Program - Position Among the Stars

Sunday, February 12 at 1:00pm

Dir. Leonard Retel Helmrich
Netherlands/Indonesia, 2010, 110 minutes

Twelve years ago, Dutch filmmaker Retel Helmrich decided to visit Indonesia, the birthplace of his Dutch father and Indonesian mother, looking for inspiration. The trip ignited his fascination with the country and he started filming the Shamshudin family living in a Jakarta slum. He followed them as the country shook off the rule of president Suharto (The Eye of the Day), experienced a rise of Islamic power (Shape of the Moon) and eventually nascent democracy, corruption and a widening income gap (Position Among the Stars). Through the eyes of grandmother Rumidjah, a poor old Christian woman living in the slums of Jakarta, we see the economical changing society of Indonesia and the influence of globalization reflected in the life of her juvenile granddaughter Tari and her sons Bakti and Dwi. Director and DOP Leonard Retel Helmrich follows this family in a unique way with his breathtaking Single Shot Cinema-technique.

“Whatever you think you understand by the word “documentary”, throw that out the window now. This is an exhilarating cinematic ride, a funny, pungent, piercing slice of neo-realist poetry that feels closer to Slumdog Millionaire than the Knowledge Network.

Leonard Retel Helmrich is a unique creative force, a virtuoso with a movie camera who would surely be as well known as Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, except that for the past 12 years he has devoted his filmmaking efforts to telling the story of one impoverished Indonesian family, the Shamshuddins. Not that Bakti and co will seem remote to anyone who has a teenage daughter more interested in hanging out at the mall than going on to college, or any housewife juggling domestic duties with a heavy workload - while her husband pins his hopes on gambling. In our globalized world the generational struggle to make ends meet, to reconcile tradition, spiritual values and social aspiration, plays out in ways that may seem both strange and oddly familiar.

Clearly made collaboratively with the subjects Position Among the Stars is a rule-breaker, a vibrant, iconoclastic response to the massive social and economic contradictions presented by life in the 21st Century.” - VIFF

Screening sponsor: Omni Sound Productions