Ferry Noviandi, Ismail – Falcon Picture is again producing a film based on a story taken from a novel by Indonesia foremost author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. This time, Falcon Pictures is working on a film titled The Fugitive (Perburuan).
The official poster for the film was launched on Wednesday June 26 in Jakarta. Falcon Pictures producer Frederica emphasised her joy in gaining the trust of Pramoedya’s family to produce two of his novels concurrently: This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia) and The Fugitive.
“We are working with (Pramoedya’s) family, there’s no business lobby [involved]. We fell that with Pram’s family there is a very good chemistry”, said Frederica during a break in the launch.
Frederica even said that it was like a gift from God when Pramoedya’s family entrusted Falcon Pictures to produce the novel which was written by the author from his jail cell in 1947.
“And actually the way that we got [the rights to] the book made us fell eerie, as if we had received a blessing from God”, related Frederica.
Uniquely, it is not just Falcon Pictures that wants to produce films based on Pramoedya’s novels, local and international production houses also want to produce them.
“I didn’t imagine [we’d get] it because in fact so many film makers have been fighting over the book Bumi Manusia, but after a journey of 15 years in the end [Pramoedya’s] family offered it to us, ‘Do you want to produce Bumi Manusia and Perburuan'”, explained Frederica quoting from the family.
Adipati Dolken and Ayushita have been entrusted to play the role of the central figures of Hardo and Ningsih in the film The Fugitive. The film, which will be directed by Richard Oh, is planned for release along with This Earth of Mankind on August 15 in the East Java provincial capital of Surabaya.
Notes
The late Pramoedya Ananta Toer is widely regarded as Indonesia’s greatest novelist and author of several works of revolutionary historical literature. Following the defeat of the Japanese, in 1947 when Dutch colonial forces returned to Indonesia to retake their former colony, Pramoedya was arrested for “anti-colonial activities”. It was during the two years spent in a Dutch labour camp that he wrote and published his first novel The Fugitive (Perburuan), which describes the story of 24 hours in the life of a guerrilla fighting the Japanese. In 1965 he was arrested again during Suharto’s purges and massacres of the Indonesian left and interned without trial until 1979. This Earth of Mankind, the first of a four part series known as the Buru Quartet, was written while Pramoedya was imprisoned on Buru Island. He died on April 30, 2006.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Falcon Pictures Kembali Filmkan Novel Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Perburuan”.]
