Paper Planes Film, Australian Boy Talent Taken to as Far as Japan

Liputan6.com, Jakarta The Australian Embassy in Jakarta successfully held an event called ‘Festival Sinema Australia Indonesia 2016’ where great movies from both countries were given the opportunity to be showcased from January 29 through to the 31 of January 2016 at Cinema XXI in Plaza Senayan.

The screening of 6 movies, which include: ‘Killers and Grave Torture’, ‘Backtrack’, ‘The Mirror never Lies’, ‘The Dressmaker’, ‘Paper Planes’, and ‘Oddball’ have contributed to the strengthening of Indonesia-Australia relation through elements that are far from political and more through creative industry.

One of the producers of Australian-made movie ‘Paper Planes’, Liz Kearney was in Jakarta to attend the event as well as to showcase her movie which starred by one of the most famous Hollywood superstars Sam Worthington and main character ‘Dylan’ played by Ed Oxenbould. During special interview held with Liputan6.com held on February 1 2016, Kearney went to briefly explain a little bit of the movie’s background and the reason why paper planes hold such great importance for the overall plot.

Also directed by the man behind politically-themed movie ‘Balibo’ Robert Connolly, Kearney shares about how the movie tells about a boy (Dylan) whose passion for paper planes immediately grew after finding out his talent to keep his paper planes remain airborne compared to others in his classroom. Dylan then continues pursuing his paper planes ambition by entering competition both at regional level in Sydney and international one in Japan. In the movie, Dylan’s mother died five months ago.

“Paper planes reminded him of his late mother as she was the one who taught him how to make one,” Said Kearney.

“This kids/family film teaches children how to stand up for themselves at such young age,” she continued.

The movie, which has been released since January 2015 in Australia and June 2015 in Indonesia was a major box office hit in Australia as it teaches a number of life lessons and values that the modern society often neglects in the current era.

Nominated for 9 and winning 2 awards, the family film Paper Planes deserves extra credit and more exposure in Indonesia. Kearney hopes that event such as ‘Festival Sinema Indonesia Australia’ continues to take place in the future as it is one of the most effective method to gain prominence in the archipelago state’s movie industry.

Kearney admits that Indonesian movies also lack the exposure it needs in Australia and that genre mainly focused on horror, if not, drama romance or comedy. She is particularly fascinated by how Indonesians are far more attracted to horror films but she also went to share about the movie which had the most appeal to her during her short visitation to Jakarta for movie screening.

“The mirror never lies, that one had the most appeal to me,” she explained.

Kearney has previously worked on other movies of different genre such as ‘These Final Hours’, ‘Brand Nu Dae’, ‘The Turning’ and ‘Transmission’. Three of the movies which she produced have all been nominated.

Creative industry has always been playing contributive role in bringing both Indonesia and Australia closer together. While it is true that relation between the two was traditionally built upon efforts of the two sides in establishing and maintaining desirable diplomatic, political, economic, trade and educational ties, it cannot be denied that creative industry has allowed for the relation to deepen in a more special and less conflicting way. It gives the relation a spark it would not have feel in other traditional sectors.