MONTASE”S SHORT: JOURNEY TO THE DARKNESS
The short horror film Journey to the Darkness (Safar be Tariki) could be the first Indonesian-Iranian collaborative film produced in which 99% of the dialogue is in Persian. This unique film, at first, was made because of the entry of our new member who came from Iran, Mohammad Mozafari or familiarly called Moyes. Like most of us, Moyes is a dedicated filmmaker who finally wanted to try his hand at producing by becoming a director. We were looking for ideas that could combine Indonesia and Iran. When the idea for this story emerged, Middle Eastern immigrants in Indonesia who wanted to go to Australia at that time were still a hot topic. Our country seems to be used as a transit point before they go to their destination countries, such as the US, Canada, and Australia. This film’s story is also inspired by the real events that happened to the director’s colleague. Why the horror genre? Because politics is horror.
This film’s idea and the concept went through a very long process, around 5-6 months before it was finally produced. Various story ideas with dark immigrant themes emerged, but none of them fit and produced. The initial concept we wanted to make this film on a real ship. We have also surveyed everywhere, beaches in Gunung Kidul to Cilacap. Finally, we realized that with the budget and the existing equipment, we would not make it. Finally, we also found a very brilliant story concept by “moving” the ship to a villa in Kaliurang. The shape of the mansion that we rent, both exterior and interior, is similar to a boat.
We divided the film into two segments; the found footage segment and the long take segment. The found footage segment uses a video recording concept containing interviews of immigrants from the Middle East. The film players also come from different countries, namely Iran, Afghanistan, and Serbia, including the director himself. Searching for players, especially female roles, is a problem in itself that we are finally able to get through a long process. This segment can also be a character introduction about immigrants and why they finally decided to leave their country for concrete reasons.
Of the five characters, one character (female) did not conduct an interview that was sick. Still, the real reason was that the player could not speak Persian. There are no significant problems in this film’s production, except for the “ghost” figure in the film, which takes a long time to take its take. In the form of a black hooded figure, this ghost figure is vital because it symbolizes the fear and tragic past that still follows them. For Middle Eastern residents, this kind of figure is considered more terrible than our local ghost figure that was never in their imagination.
The second segment is the most challenging because it uses the long take technique for 8 minutes with continuous shots. Why use this technique? Because this segment takes place on a ship (symbolic, of course) where each character is lost/killed due to being hit by a storm. Like a ship in progress, one person remains looking for the other missing comrades until he finally dies himself. One segment of the “black background” at the end of the film with the wind’s sound and screams and screams is to emphasize the situation they are in. We have also put some markers since the first segment shows if the mansion is a ship, through dialogue, sound effects, the rumbling sky will come to a storm. It is not an easy thing for ordinary viewers to understand. We reinforce it again using the caption text in the form of information at the end of the film.
Journey to the Darkness is a unique political horror film that we have aimed at several non-mainstream festivals, such as the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival. This film successfully made it to this festival and even had time to screen in XXI and CGV theaters. One more surprising thing, this film was able to penetrate the short film nominations at the prestigious Maya Cup 2019 in Jakarta. This short film is just a trial run with our big plans in the future to make a feature version. Can you imagine if this film will use the long take technique with a duration of 80 minutes only set on a ship traveling in the middle of the ocean? This is going to be something. Let’s watch our unique short film in full via the link below.
