ARKIPEL – Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival 2020 was not held as usual due to the pandemic. But we committed to hold ARKIPEL’s preceding event, Forum Festival, in order to encourage the exchange of knowledge, especially the discourse on cinema and our culture. As a part of the festival, FORUM FESTIVAL holds a strategic cultural position for ARKIPEL in sharing the knowledge of films both in national and global scale. In 2020, the pandemic reveals the sustainability of the twilight zone, or the “gray” zone; and the collapse of its object of criticism: modernity. Who will survive? It is not only a matter of human survival but also its culture. Dr. Hilmar Farid, a historian who now serves as the General Director of Culture in the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, explained that in the midst of this pandemic, social reorganization is needed to build social imagination for life in the future. Then next on the panel entitled Navigating the Twilight Zone in the Current Time”. This panel discusses the situation of our twilight zone today, particularly on the pandemic situation and the failure of modernism, and further efforts to navigate our way into the future. The speakers for this panel are Butet Manurung, Martin Suryajaya, and Hizkia Yosie Polimpung. In this panel, the audience’s questions generally asked about the ways to respond to the current chaotic situation. According to Butet, to respond to the situation, people must have the literacy to be aware of the situation and problems around them. Martin emphasized the role of the local economy, the one that does not necessarily depend on global chains. Meanwhile, Yosie thought that colonialism and its chaos had to be accepted in order to focus on our imagination of the future. The second panel, “The Survival of the Art Ecosystem and Imagining the Aesthetics of Tomorrow” invited Alia Swastika, Cecil Mariani, and Tonny Trimarsanto to share their ideas. This panel discussed the aesthetics of the world during this pandemic and the possible infrastructure that might survive or emerge in the future. Lastly, the third panel, “Alternative Lens Practices in Film Criticism” invited Dhuha Ramadhani, Intan Paramaditha, and Seno Gumira Ajidarma. This panel generally questioned the role of criticism in the film ecosystem. Forum Festival 2020 – ARKIPEL Twilight Zone is held online via Zoom Webinar, while broadcasted live in Jurnal Footage’s YouTube channel. Year Jakarta, Indonesia
2020
Forum Festival 2020: Twilight Zone
