•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Blood, intestines and chunks of human flesh being cut and sewn back together are gory details that Adriano Rudiman, a student and novice film director, grew up with.

“I have a certain fascination with gory films because both of my parents are doctors and my dad is a surgeon,” Adriano said. “When I was little, I would make videos with my friends using my dad’s camera recorder, which still had recordings of surgery in progress. I guess I’m just used to it. Then I started watching bloody movies in high school.”

Adriano, 20, directed the short feature film “Effect,” which made it to the final round of Fantastic Indonesian Short Film Competition (Fisfic), a fantasy genre short-film competition that includes horror, thriller and science fiction stories. More than 400 story ideas were submitted, and Adriano’s “Effect” was one of six finalists selected.

The finalists were rewarded with production money, filmmaking workshops and a chance get on the fast track in Indonesia’s film industry. Fisfic is part of a larger film festival, the Indonesia International Fantastic Film Festival (iNAFFF), which screened the finalists’ films in Jakarta on Nov. 14, while the Bandung premier is coming up on Saturday. The films will also be released on DVD by Jive-Entertainment. On Sunday evening (after press time), iNAFFF organizers selected the contest’s winner, which will be screened as part of a collection of short films at a later date.

“Effect” was Adriano’s first effort as a director and one of several story ideas he entered in the competition, which included zombie, alien and ghost stories.

While Adriano grew up with gore and is an avid fan of fantasy films, he was still a stranger to the actual process of filmmaking — he worked with fellow fantasy fan and editor in chief of Cleo fashion magazine Leila Safira, who co-wrote and produced “Effect.” The duo received Rp 10 million ($1,100) in funding, training and assistance from renowned filmmakers such as Joko Anwar and Lala Timothy as well as film critic Ekky Imanjaya.

“On our first day of filming, we were just clueless,” Adriano said. “We received training and a workshop, but there are challenges that popped up on filming days that we didn’t expect. Being a director is tiring, and I’m sure the other crew members were exhausted, too. Our first day was supposed to be done by 7 p.m., but we ended up finishing at 5 a.m. the next day.”

“Effect,” filmed in Jakarta and Bandung, involves two main characters, played by singers Tabitha Leena and Sita Nursanti, and 30 extras, all of whom volunteered to be in the movie.

“We made this film out of passion, and no one got paid. But we all certainly got invaluable experience,” Adriano said. “I’m glad that I could learn from the best people.”

Despite his gore roots, “Effect” is more thriller than slasher. “The main inspiration for the movie came from Leila’s real-life experience,” Adriano said.

“Effect” tells a story about an employee in a big city waiting for a promotion, only to be denied by her boss. As her rage mounts, she decides to enter her boss’s name to a Web site that offers to hurt, or even kill, a requested target. After soliciting violence, the employee’s life becomes a spine-chilling roller coaster ride.

“Leila didn’t exactly kill her mean former boss, but the inspiration comes from there,” Adriano said.

Leila said she dedicated the movie to her former colleagues who were working under the despotic boss. “My friends are pretty stoked about the movie,” she said.

“Effect” is an experimental project for both aspiring filmmakers. The goal is to take the audience on a suspense ride through realistic but mysterious sci-fi scenes. “There will be some cliffhangers, of course,” Adriano said.

Adriano, a student at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), said comics were a big part of his life. He is now working on an online comic project titled “Thumbalip” with singer Sherina Munaf, as well as a separate project with radio DJ Pandji Pragiwaksono.

An avid sci-fi enthusiast, Liela enjoys writing fiction. She grew up following her parents as they moved from island to island, and writing and reading were Leila’s solace in her nomadic existence.

The duo met through Twitter discussions about the TV series “Game of Thrones” and “Fringe,” and they found a common passion about anything within the fantasy genre.

“Working with such a young person was a bit challenging of course,” Leila said. “From the creative side, no problem. He’s great. But when it came to procedures, work flow and time management, well, it was a bit harder to adjust.”

Adriano said that as a college student, he worked more spontaneously and often in a disorganized way.

“Leila’s work is more structured, but we made a great team,” he said.

With the passion and energy in place, the pair said they had a blast while filming “Effect,” despite the production challenges.

“We played around with a prosthetic hand, frightening people on the set with it,” Adriano said. “There’s a friend of ours who played the first murder victim. We asked him to do all sorts of exhausting actions: lie on the street during a really hot and humid day, pretend to be hit by a motorbike, etc. The best part is he didn’t have a clue about his character. He had to find out by watching the movie at the festival.

“The competition got me excited about delving into filmmaking even deeper, but it also taught me about all the hard work we had to put into the process. But it’s relieving to know that being an idealistic filmmaker is possible. There are people out there, like the folks behind the festival and competition, who will appreciate your work.”

Adriano and Leila feel that since they’ve worked so well together, why stop with “Effect?” “We want our future projects to be in the fantasy genre,” Leila said.

“We are planning to work on graphic novels for kids that teach them about science — like the Big Bang and Big Crunch — in a fun way.” Leila said she wants to dare kids to dream and to stretch their minds.

“As for a film project,” Adriano said, “I have an idea to make a movie about a psychotic doctor, and I would love to name the character after my father.”