Art Beats Festival 24

Si Merah / The Way I See The Red (Shelvira Alyya)

10min 2s – 16:9 – 1080p

Synopsis

A woman who feels uneasy about herself as a woman, she continues to be overshadowed by the fear of living in an imaginary red-tinted world ruled by women. She is confronted by a group of other women who forces her to become a powerful woman like a “mother”. Articulated in various forms of body gestures and expressions, the women are confronted with various views on mothers and women.

Artist Statement

As a female filmmaker, this is certainly not an easy thing to do. But it cannot be denied, the development of female directors is currently getting wider. With various polemics that continue to be felt by women such as the endless terror of fear, have we ever thought that the one who prolongs this fear is the woman herself. In this fast-paced era, there are still those who fail to understand what the women’s movement or so-called feminist movement is, feminists are still read as an arrogant and anti-criticism movement, including by women. With that in mind, I created a film with an experimental format as my attempt to redeem the boundaries of a woman’s fear of power (metaphorized as being a mother). This work is part of the final project research of the film and television department of UPI, Indonesia.

Raised through stories passed down from previous generations, Indonesia once had a history of being led by a woman as president, which we usually call “First Lady” is the spouse of the president. But at that time, the first lady who led directly tended to have an unfavorable record. She also has the identification of the color red as part of her identity. Through this idea, the movie is created as a “red world of women’s fears”, with red artistry from all aspects and the body performance of the actors who present various expressions of their views on women’s fears.

The choice of experimental-narrative film format is a consideration that the audio-visual language (moving images) presented is a universal language, I believe that even though experimental films are not a common medium for the public, these films can offer an interesting dialog after screening.

Shelvira Alyya

Shelvira Alyya (b. 1999) is an artist and filmmaker, a graduate of Film and Television study program, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, from Bandung, Indonesia. In her practice of exploring herself through artistic spaces, she has made several film works with various genres, which currently focus more on experimental films with themes of women and environmental phenomena. Shelvira is currently involved in the community, Bahasinema (film studies, programs and exhibitions) and Indeks (art curatorial platform, she focuses on film programs and artist residencies).

Her work has been screened in several countries such as Indonesia, Germany, Malaysia, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. She also participated in several residencies within and outside Indonesia. His work titled LAMUN (IF) was the result of a workshop process with various artists with Goethe-Institut Bandung, and became a selected film at the Asien Afrika Institut at Universitat Hamburg and Haus Der Indonesischen Kulturen in Germany (2022) as well as in one of the programs of Lancaster-Sunway International Festival (Art Beats Festival) in Malaysia (2023). Another work entitled The Way I See The Red has been screened with Ba-Bau AIR in Vietnam, ELSE Screening Series in Thailand as well as at the 50th Anniversary of Filmklasse HBK Braunscweig with Erik Pauhrizi and Prof. Michael Brynntrup (2024).