Thinking About Home (Making of Balik Jakarta)

Germany and Indonesia diplomatic relation has officially started in 1952. Numerous Indonesian well knowned figure have ever studied or worked in Germany, such as painter Raden Saleh, ex-president B.J. Habibie, etc. This year, we are given the opportunity to tell the friendship story between these two great countries. In this post, we proudly announce that Studio Antelope is officially on board in Indonesia-Germany friendship short film project titled Balik Jakarta (Return to Jakarta).

The project was kicked off on mid May this year. Dimas Jayasrana, knowned as Viddsee Indonesian content manager, is appointed as project manager of Balik Jakarta. One day, Dimas told us the big statement of the project: to tell the friendship between two countries in a road movie involving two man from these two countries. Feel the project very intriguing, we decided to get involved.

Then the story development goes. It is a road movie that follows Togar, a rookie motorcycle taxi driver, who meets Günther, a German tourist with big posture, who is looking for his childhood house in Jakarta. Jason Iskandar is appointed as writer and director of this film, and Florence Giovani will take the production. Jason has been developing the script to find the best way to tell the story effectively yet attractively.

The journey making this film is fun so far. It is currently on the second draft, so we can not share anything yet. But the thing is, we try our best not to make Balik Jakarta only a film about friendship between Germany and Indonesia, but we want to make it also about home in general. Everybody has a place the call home. How they define their home, it depends on them.  Let’s see how it goes.

NB: You can share us your idea about ‘home’ in Balik Jakarta Official Website. And there’s also a blog so you can follow the journey of the film in that microsite.