More Indonesian filmmakers are getting international recognition as they should, and director Wregas Bhanuteja’s debut feature film has become the latest addition to the list.
Penyalin Cahaya, with the international title Photocopier, will have its international debut at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and competing under the New Currents section, the award of which will be given to two best first or second feature films from up-and-coming Asian filmmakers.
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Though the exact date of Photocopier’s BIFF premiere is yet to be announced, the festival will run from Oct. 6-15 in Busan, South Korea.
Produced by Kaninga Pictures and Rekata Studio, a digital media company of Kompas Gramedia Group, Photocopier is written and directed by Wregas.
Photocopier tells the story of Sur (Shenina Cinnamon), who lost her scholarship after her drunk selfie circulated online, for which she was accused of bringing disgrace to her faculty. However, Sur had no recollection of the previous night’s events, as she blacked out when attending a college party.
She then asked for help from her childhood friend Amin (Chicco Kurniawan), a photocopier who lives and works at the campus, to find out what actually happened to her that night at the party.
Hailing from Yogyakarta, 28-year-old Wregas isn’t a new name in the indie film circuit. He had made his name in the local and international film festivals through his short films, such as Lemantun (2014) and Prenjak or In The Year of Monkey (2016), the latter of which won Best Short Film in the Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique program in 2016. The victory meant he became the first (and so far only) Indonesian to win an award in the prestigious festival.
More recently, Wregas helmed the short film No One is Crazy in This Town (2019), which was adapted from author Eka Kurniawan’s short story of the same name. The short had its world premiere and competed at BIFF 2019 as well as the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
