Garuda Power: The Spirit Within and Gundala trailer

Bastian Meiresonne

Summary

The documentary underlines the history of Indonesian action films, starting from as early as Chinese-influenced martial arts movies (1930s), including the trend of super hero comic book adaptations of the 1970s. The director put many rare footages from the 1930s and 1940s.

The screening will be opened by a film trailer of the forthcoming Gundala movie by Joko Anwar. The film will be released in July 2019 and a remake of the classic film, Gundala (Tjut Djalil, 1981), which was also an adaptation of the comics produced between 1969-1982 by Hasmi.

Presentation of these films will be preceeded by an introduction by Bastian Meiresonne, director of Garuda Power , and followed by a question and answer session.

Speaker: Bastian Meiresonne

Moderator: Hikmat Darmawan

Speaker Biographies

Bastian Mereisonne: An expert on Asian Cinema, consultant for many film festivals, including the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema ( VIFF of Asian Cinema ). Garuda Power: The Spirit Within (2014) is his first feature documentary about the history of Indonesian (Action) Cinema and has been selected in over 40 international film festivals.

Hikmat Darmawan: A critic specialized in movies, comics, and literature. In 2010 he was selected for the Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowship Program from the Nippon Foundation. His current project Pabrikultur offers programming of cultural events. He is now the head of Film Committee in Jakarta Arts Council since 2016. His latest book is Sebulan di Negeri Manga/ A Month in Manga Nation (2019).

Suitable only for 15 years and over. Subtitles in English.

This event is free and open to the public. Seats are available on a first come first served basis.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of South East Asian Studies

Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4893/2