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WHO WE ARE
A permanent freelancer in arts management and journalism,
he's been also a temporary nomad rumbling European film festivals over the past year. He's now can be easily found
in the artsy-fartsy circle in Jakarta. He has a fetish on ice cream, by the way.
As an acute social
climber. he successfully made a headline in the country with his script of a teenage flick that was banned recently. He is
now writing more scripts to be able to make the headlines again.
His recent breakthrough is to enter the TV limelight.
Currently undergoing a French language course to be able to speak the language of love, he likes horror flicks but is afraid
to face the real ghosts.
She hasn't decided where to settle down whether
it's going to be Jakarta or Bangkok, but she made it clear that she'd rather be locked up and chained in an ad agency.
As a foreign press correspondent and a native Indonesian
(but he looks Chinese), he's finally giving up and studying Chinese language at the moment. He is a frequent toilet goer for
whatever reasons.
As a panic-free person, he is drowning himself into
the world of advertising. He's now a regular for extra on TV commercials and films.
The most siletn person in the comittee, he is writing
and writing for all different medias. He can be easily found in the groups of young boys.
The Iron Lady that's been strangled in the making
of an epic film that she doesn't have a life at all.
He is now in "Missing In Action" status serving
as a diplomatic slave in Cambodia.
The architect turned to "Mother" of all the members,
she is always busy traveling the route Jakarta-Bandung-Jakarta.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Q-Munity is founded in 2002 from an informal conversation
among a few freelance journalists who are concerned about the arts management in Indonesia. They want to improve of the accessibility of performing arts and film appreciation to as widest public audience
as possible.
The first activity that they organised is the Q!
Film Screening (QFS). QFS was held in September 2002 for 5 days screening over 20 films about gay, lesbian and transgender.
The objective of this activity is to give a positive image on gay people and is non-commercial. They didnt charge any fees
to see the films and furthermore even helped an AIDS organisation to spread out their research report on HIV to the audience.
During the 5 day film screening, the event was attended by more than 1,500 people. From the questionnaire given during the
screenings, most of the audience had a positive response and feedback on the event. Some even suggested to do these kinds
of events on a regular basis. Q-Munity decided to make the film screening as their annual activity and planned to tour the
QFS to other cities in Indonesia.
Organising a gay related
event in Indonesia that has more than 80 percent Moslems is not an easy task to do. QFS is the first ever
gay and lesbian film festival organised in a predominantly moslem country. Q-Munity members faced death threats from a
strong Islamic group. The government board of censorship was pretty against the nature of the event. Still, the courageous
members of Q-Munity went on with the plan. Nothing harmful happened during the film screenings. Naturally, little
financial contributions, sponsors or fundings Q-Munity received. The government would not approve
such activities. The commercial sponsors were too scared to be associated with the gay issues and would ruin their corporate
image. However, Q-Munity members took out their own savings to make the film screenings running with the help of some personal
donation and the some foreign cultural institutions gave their venues free of charge.
September 2003, Q-Munity organized
the second Q! Film Festival. They call it a festival because its becoming the biggest film festival in Indonesia
so far this year, (bigger than Jakarta International Film Festival, British Film Festival, French Film Festival in terms of
number of films, number of screenings, number of venues and longer period of time) featuring 51 films with plenty of fringe
events such as painting exhibition from Agung Kurniawan, photo exhibition by 6 gay and lesbian photographers,
a literature talk by a New York novelist Jamie James, three panel discussions and four international guests from Canada, United
Kingdom, and Japan attending the festival. The 10-day film screenings was attended by 4,000
people.
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