KAUM Indonesian Alternative Performance & Film Festival 2021

The KAUM Indonesian Alternative Performance & Film Festival organised by the Soydivision collective aims to raise underrepresented voices in the Indonesian society on issues related to the environment, the Chinese-Indonesian society, East Indonesia, Feminism, and LGBTQ+. These different topics translate into the categories of the festival: dare to be conscious, dare to be different, dare to be east, dare to be equal, dare to be oneself!

The festival takes place over 14 days at three different venues: Oyoun - Lucy-Lameck-Str. 32, 12049 Berlin, District Berlin - Bessemerstraße 2, 12103 Berlin, and Ana Conda am Ufer - Uferstr. 23 c/o Uferstudios, 13357 Berlin. The program ranges from the screening of Indonesian films to performances by Indonesian diaspora artists and public discourses.

For programme details and tickets see: kaumfestival.soydivision.berlin

---

The word KAUM in the Indonesian language means a “clan” or a “community”, while in German, it means “barely” or even “marginally”. 

With its more than 13 thousand islands throughout the archipelago, Indonesia is blessed with diverse clans/communities, each with its own distinctive culture. However, as a nation that claims “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” (Unity in Diversity) as its official national motto, Indonesia still faces segregation within its diverse society: there exist the marginalized and the minority. Some of the marginalized choose to flee the country in the hope of finding a better future elsewhere. However, geographically escaping the space does not mean solving the issues, as it has veritably ingrained and became a part of one’s identity.

Soydivision is a Berlin-based independent alternative Indonesian diaspora collective with a mission to provoke a discussion about the exploration and the expression of identity through art and food. Reflecting on the issue of marginalized communities, Soydivision was inspired to expand its calling to create a platform and space for the underrepresented in a hybrid form of a performance and film festival: KAUM - Indonesian Alternative Performance & Film Festival.

Performance is the breath of Soydivision as a collective. It is often used as a medium to express the community’s concerns and to channel our responses to issues mainly related to social and climate injustice. Established and founded in 2017, Soydivision has been growing ever since, allowing the community’s family to expand, as it gets to meet and collaborate with other Indonesian and Asian diasporas, who share similar interests and backgrounds: from students, fellow artists, performers, musicians to filmmakers. We believe that we can find more innovative yet sustainable methods from these diverse universes and connections to impact and attract new audiences.

Like two sides of a coin, we see performance and film as two fundamentally interconnected parts, as they essentially carry the same notion and share similar purposes - to convey emotions. With film, the emotions are often channeled through live-action storytelling that is documented through a lens based on the actual space. On the other side, the act of performance originated and is processed internally before it is tangibly and presently expressed, regardless of where the scene occurs.

Based on this view, this alternative festival aims to cultivate and preserve diverse, underrepresented  Indonesian voices to advance in Europe. The festival showcases several main categories covering some of the underlying issues of Indonesian marginal communities while combining performances and films as the two subjects of the festival’s main foundations. The festival aspires to act as a representative for Indonesia’s marginal communities.

With cutting-edge screening programs for each of the festival’s categories, the festival also aims to provide a platform for Indonesian filmmakers to showcase their films in Europe. Moreover, each category will be accompanied by performances from Indonesian artists who reside in Europe as a critical and honest response towards each of the related issues. In doing so, KAUM hopes to represent those whose voices are constantly oppressed and deserve to be heard and create a space for constructive dialogues through the two perspectives.

---

Funded by: #TakePart funding program by Fonds Darstellende Künste 

Partners: Queer Asia, European Solidarity Corps, In-Docs, Minikino, Jakarta Feminist