British Film Institute premier for post-graduate student

The English subtitled film has been produced by MA Design Management student, Muhammad Adi Panuntun, and was filmed in his native Indonesia.

The film, called Cin(T)a, received its UK premiere at the Nation Film Theatre in London followed by a showcase tour of selected universities.

The story follows two central characters, Cina (Sunny Soon), an 18 year-old first year student with a strong yet naïve faith untested by failure and Annisa (Saira Jihan), a 24 year-old lonely Javanese Moslem woman whose education was held back because of her career in the movie industry. The film follows their quest to find love across the multicultural divide of modern-day Indonesia.

Adi explains: “With this film we wanted to ask some questions regarding the interactivity between different ethnic and religious groups. The film looks at the problems two people face when trying to establish their mutual love against a background of very different upbringings.

“We have tried not to make any statements but instead to raise some of the issues affecting young people in Indonesia (and across the world) today.”

The 75 minute long, high definition feature film was conceived, written, filmed and produced entirely by Muhammad’s own Sembilan Matahari film company throughout 2008.

Incredibly, the film which boasts a very high production quality, and has just been signed to a major cinema chain in Indonesia, was produced on a budget of less than £10,000. This required very tight planning and a dedicated work ethic. Filming was done in just two weeks using only two actors: Sunny Soon and Saira Jihan. All other appearances are as extras by the crew and friends who therefore were not paid for their cameos.

Speaking about the making of the film, Adi said: “We wanted to create a really high quality film but had to work within the constraints of a very tight budget. So we made the best of what resources we had.

“With just one high definition camera we planned the shooting and the lighting of the shots very carefully and even resorted to making the equipment we couldn’t afford such as camera dollies.”

The film has just completed a series of screenings at Northumbria and other university venues across the country using student Indonesian clubs as networking sites. He explained: “By using these networks we have garnered a lot of interest in the film both here in the UK and back home where we will launch the film after the UK dates.”