Jakarta. Mark your calendars. The Mexican Embassy in Indonesia will premiere the animated short film ‘The Cosmic Twins’, a Mayan tale for wayang, or Javanese shadow puppet theater, and Mexican shadow theater, on August 30.

The event is in collaboration with the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry, along with the  Jorge Marín Foundation, the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana. Five other Mexican diplomatic missions in Southeast Asia will premiere this animated short as well.

In ‘Cosmic Twins’, Mexican sculptor Jorge Marin transforms his sculptures into animated puppets to pay tribute to the millennia old tradition of the wayang kulit.  

Using modern audiovisual resources, Marin recreates a tale of the ‘Popol Vuh’, an ancient script written in Chichicastenango, Guatemala, that delves into the emergence of the world and the creation of humans. 

It recreates aspects of the Mayan culture present in South East Mexico and several Central American countries (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador).

The show will start at 7 p.m. sharp on the Mexican Embassy official Facebook page or the Education Ministry’s Budaya Saya channel on Youtube. 

At the event, Indonesian wayang kulit master Ki Dalang Muhammad Pamungkas Prasetyo Bayu Aji will give a brief introduction to shadow theaters. The audience can also tune in to talks, workshops, as well as contests. 

“This project is a testament to the astounding power of culture in connecting people back to their ancestors while simultaneously erasing the notion of distance by bringing two geographical antipodes such as Mexico and Indonesia together and strengthening the relations between nations,” Mexican Ambassador to Indonesia Armando G. Alvarez said in a recent statement.

Hilmar Farid, the director general of culture at the Education Ministry, hopes the event will nurture stronger partnership between Indonesia and Mexico in the cultural field.

“We hope that in future events, we can collaborate more to learn and develop both Indonesia and Mexico’s culture in the international realm and to strengthen Indonesia and Mexico’s brotherhood in the process,” he said.