Garin Nugroho Brings 'Chaotic Love Poems' to Busan Film Festival
Jakarta. Award-winning film director Garin Nugroho brought his latest film "Aach, Aku Jatuh Cinta" ("Chaotic Love Poems") to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) on Tuesday.
The festival is held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea.
Chaotic Love Poems is one of 52 films from 32 countries at the festival's "A Window of Asian Cinema" program.
Garin said that this is his sixth film to be selected at BIFF. The festival is currently entering its 20th year and has become the benchmark for filmmakers in the Asian region.
"BIFF is a special festival in Asia, it's the go-to festival for people who want to check out who's who in the Asian film industry," Garin told a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday, just several hours before his flight to South Korea.
The film already premiered at the South Korean film festival on Monday and will be screened again for viewers on Thursday and Friday.
Chaotic Love Poems, starring Pevita Pearce and Chicco Jerikho, is set in three different eras, the 70s, 80s and 90s. The retro look throughout the film is Garin's take on the current trend in filmmaking, as showcased recently in international blockbusters such as "Black Mass" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
Pevita and Chicco play Yulia and Rumi, who grew up as neighbors and fell in love without knowing how to say it to one another. Garin wrote Rumi based on his real life experiences when he went to school in Yogyakarta.
Character wise, both Rumi and Yulia are quite alike, they express their emotions by writing.
"Rumi always wanted to get her attention, and failed miserably," Chicco said.
Pevita said Chaotic Love Poems captures different cultures across three different eras, when the world was not as progressive as it is today. Being modest and demure was the norm at the time. Garin recalled that in the 70s, lipstick was affordable to the everyday women, and women who wore colors would attract negative attention for being too dolled-up.
"This [was] the age when people [would] write letters, instead of chatting or texting," Pevita said. "The film wants to offer you this kind of sensation."
For Garin, who has been a filmmaker for decades, Chaotic Love Poems offers the innocence and sweet nostalgia of romance comedy films from the past. "I have been making films for 30 years, and I just think it's time to be young again," he said. "I wanted to do something comical and romantic."
He recalled the hype for his 1992 film "Cinta dalam Sepotong Roti," which was considered groundbreaking at that time because it was such a personal, platonic and poetic take on romance.
"I think it's very important for films to reflect the personality of the director," he said. "The story also has to be unique. That is why Thai and South Korean films are a big hit in their neighboring countries."
Producer Amrit Punjabi from Multivision Plus said Chaotic Love Poems is set to release in Indonesia on Nov. 5. The movie will also be distributed to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
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