Grand Prix Competition

SHAPE OF THE MOON

STAND VAN DE MAAN



Leonard Retel Helmrich

Country of production: Netherlands
Year: 2004
Language: Bahasa Indonesian, Javanese
Mins: 92

Productions company: Scarabee Films
Producer: Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich
Script: Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich, Leonard Retel Helmrich
Cinematography: Leonard Retel Helmrich
Editing: Andrez de Jong, Denise Janzee, Robert Broekhof
Sound: Ranko Paukovic
Music: Joep Lans, Ernst Jansz, Dio Oberon

Source: Films Transit International
252 Boulevard Gouin Est
Montreal, Quebec H3L 1A8, Canada
Tel: +1 514 844 3358
Fax: +1 514 844 7298
e-mail: office@filmstransit.com
www.filmstransit.com


In this vivid follow up to The Eye of the Day (2001), director Leonard Retel Helmrich again visits Indonesia through three generations of the Sjamsuddin family. Rumidjah, a 62 year-old Catholic widow, lives in a working-class district of Jakarta, with her son Bakti, a new Muslim convert, and her granddaughter Tari. Since the fall of Suharto, she has witnessed the country pass through a period of socio-political chaos. Islam, Indonesia's largest religion, is trying to maintain order and discipline, while becoming increasingly fundamentalist in its tone. These changes and conflicts with her son make Rumidjah long for life in the simple country village of her birth. Mother and son’s good-natured quarrels take place against the background of anti-US demonstrations and an Islamic neighborhood watch. In this way the film continually connects small issues with large ones. There are no interviews, no voice-over. Shape of the Moon offers the kind of cinema vérite where the camera moves intuitively along with the action. Joris Ivens Award, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam; Grand Prize, World Cinema Documentary, Sundance Film Festival.

Leonard Retel Helmrich completed work at the Netherlands Film Academy in 1986 for a degree as a fiction director by making the short film The Drowning Man . He made his feature film debut with The Phoenix Mystery in 1990. His documentary film Moving Objects (1991) won several prizes at international film festivals, as did 2001's The Eye of the Day . Since 1994, Retel Helmrich has split his time between Amsterdam and Jakarta.

FILMOGRAPHY

THE SHAPE OF THE MOON (2004)
THE EYE OF THE DAY (2001)
MOVING OBJECTS (1991)
THE PHOENIX MYSTERY (1990)

SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 2005 AT 5.30 PM. / FACET CINEMATHEQUE.
MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2005 AT 9.00 PM. / DOC FILMS
TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2005 AT 9.00 PM. / FACET CINEMATHEQUE