Photos of popular Indonesian actresses Dian Sastrowardoyo and Putri Marino recently sent Indonesians into a frenzy, as the images confirmed that they are going to star in an adaptation of Gadis Kretek (Cigarette Girl), which will be a Netflix original series.
Images of Dian and Putri with their Gadis Kretek scripts during a reading session were tweeted by film account @WatchmenID yesterday, saying that they will be involved in the project.
Nah udah fix nih mereka barengan dalam 1 project 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Ho73a0VcJW
— WatchmenID 🎬 (@WatchmenID) July 13, 2022
Today, Netflix Indonesia announced that the series is currently in the production stage ahead of an expected 2023 release date.
Other than Dian and Putri, the series will star popular Indonesian actors such as Ario Bayu and Arya Saloka (of popular sinetron Ikatan Cinta), among others. The series adaptation will be directed by the husband-and-wife team of filmmakers Kamila Andini (Yuni, Sekala Niskala) and Ifa Isfansyah (Losmen Bu Broto, Hoax).
Published in 2012, Gadis Kretek is a best-selling novel by Ratih Kumala. The novel won numerous awards, including being listed among the top ten books in the Indonesian literature award Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa in the same year.
Taking readers from the Dutch East Indies era to post-Indonesian independence, the novel tells a story about a dying man named Pak Soeraja who suddenly calls for Jeng Yah, a woman who’s not his wife.
Soeraja’s wife is consumed by jealousy because his last wish was to meet Jeng Yah. However, their three sons, Lebas, Karim, and Tegar — the heirs to Kretek Djagad Raja, the country’s largest kretek (unfiltered cigarettes) empire — decide to find her whereabouts into the deepest recesses of Java to fulfill their father’s last dying wish.
During their journey, the three of them discover the long held secrets about their family’s business and Soeraja’s private life, which includes his love story with Jeng Yah, who was an owner of Kretek Gadis, the local kretek brand of the M City that was famous back in the day.
