Bali Taksu Film Festival

Trisha Sertori, Contributor, Denpasar

Bohemians, artists, actors and filmmakers have been making their way to Bali’s limpid seas and sands for almost 100 years, seduced by the island, its people and their way of life; the sway of coconut trees echoing the sway of women’s sarongs, heads piled high with offerings to Hindu Gods; or young men with their dancers’ bodies scampering up those same swaying trees to gather the yellow fruit with its cooling liquid and sweet white meat.

That was the new world discovered by artist Walter Spies and his film director partner, F.W. Murnau of the 1924 classic Nosferatu.

They would soon be joined by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, English playwright Noel Coward, silver screen comic genius Charlie Chaplin — once quoted s quipping “if it comes to the worst we’ll go to Bali” — to be followed in later years by those kings of the road films, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and their queen, the voluptuous Dorothy Lamore.

Not much has changed over the past decades, except celebrities now wing their way first class to Bali, rather than steaming their way to the “Island of the Gods” on ships complete with ballrooms as their predecessors did.

Today it is actress Sigourney Weaver of the recently released Infamous, Aliens and Gorillas in the Mist fame, the hound dog-faced comedian Bill Murray of countless films including Lost in Translation who, among others, head to Bali for a bit tropical R and R.

One anecdote says that Murray literally found himself lost in translation after hiring a motorcycle and heading for Bali’s central mountains — to become utterly lost in a village rich in high Balinese, but short on English.

And it is this new breed of Bali-loving celebrities who may act as the centerpiece of the inaugural Bali Taksu Film Festival and Awards to be held later this year, under the auspices of the Bali Film Centre (BFC) and Bali-based publisher Saritaksu Editions.

According to BFC director Deborah Gabinetti, the first Bali Taksu Film Festival and Awards is slated for Oct. 25-28 with dozens of high-profile actors, directors and producers of blockbuster films and documentaries on the guest list.

“What we want to do is invite people who have long supported the country through thick and thin, such as Sigourney Weaver, Richard Curtis, Ed Norton Jr., Oscar-winning screenwriter of Dangerous Liaisons Christopher Hampton, Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, award-winning film-score composer Richard Horowitz, Bill Murray and actor-director Robert Redford, who occasionally travels to Bali to paint,” said Gabinetti.

“Through the film festival we want to recognize them for their continued support and also introduce the many film locations of Indonesia. It’s a working and awards festival,” she said.

Gabinetti has recently traveled to film location trade shows in Hong Kong and Santa Monica, California, wearing her BFC hat and promoting Indonesia to the international filmmaking fraternity as a country of prime film locations.

Setting itself apart from other festivals around the world, Saritaksu Editions’ Sarita Newson says the Bali Taksu Film Festival will select the winning films from festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, Hong Kong, Busan and Venice for screening.

“This will not be a film judging festival, but rather taking the best of the year’s films from around the world. That concept has not been done anywhere else; that idea of presenting the best films that have already been selected by audiences around the world,” said Newson.

Current plans for the festival include a celebrity golf championship and three days of film screenings and entertainment, followed by what Gabinetti and Newson say will be the real meat of the exercise: the introduction of potential film locations to production houses with the bucks to back their films.

Heading up the festival committee are honorary chairman and former culture and tourism minister Joop Ave, alongside his honorary co-chair, Indonesian actress Melati Rima.

Newson says the project is already receiving strong government support for the festival, but that strong funding will define its success.

“What we really need to make the festival the success it will be is financial sponsorship,” she said.