ARTHOUSE CINEMA

ArtHouse Cinema is the regular film program of the Goethe-Institut. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month we screen independent movies, avant-garde movies, retrospectives, experimental films or documentary films from Europe and Indonesia – anything but the mainstream.

Director: Ismail Fahmi Lubish, 110 minutes, 2013

We are happy to invite you to the next installment of the ArtHouse Cinema program on Tuesday, the 28th of April. This time we will screen a documentary called Masked Monkey – The Evolution of Darwin’s Theory directed by Ismail Fahmi Lubish.

The common opinion concerning Darwin’s theory of evolution is that man originates from the monkey. This film explores the possibility that the two species are actually of the same origin and discovers the similarities between them. The filmmaker takes an extraordinary approach by observing monkey puppet shows in Jakarta. For the show, the puppeteers train their monkeys to act and behave like men. Similarly, men are also trained by their environment and society to act according to certain rules and values. While the puppeteers control the monkeys, the puppeteers are controlled by their bosses.

Ismail Fahmi Lubis is a director and cinematographer who studied at Jakarta Arts Institute from 1993-1999, majoring in Directing. Since 1998 he has focused on documentary filmmaking. Ismail worked with the renowned documentary filmmaker, Leonard Retel Helmrich as cinematographer for his award-winning films shot in Indonesia.