INDONESIA − With a long history working in media in Indonesia, it is inevitable that Jesuit scholastics in Indonesia produce films as part of their formation.  The scholastics are attached to Studio Audio Visual Puskat (SAV Puskat), the Jesuit established and run audio visual training and production centre in Sinduharjo, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.  

The film production project is part of the scholastics’ work exposure.  They are asked to develop a concept based on one of the priorities of the Indonesian Jesuits – inter-religious harmony and the environment.  A team from SAV Puskat accompanies them through the entire process, which results in films that reflect the insights and perspectives of the scholastics in their topic of choice.

“Through this project the scholastics learn how teamwork, sharing experience and audiovisual skill can be combined into a sense of one apostolic body of the society. They also learn how to use film as a means to achieve a greater goal, that is to develop understanding among religions and to promote peaceful life in society and preservation of the environment as a main concern of the Province,” said Fr Yoseph Iswarahadi SJ, Director of Studio Audio Visual (SAV) Puskat.

Two films can be viewed below.

“Learning from Pesantren Edi Mancoro Salatiga” recounts the experience of Indonesian Jesuit scholastics when they lived with Muslims in an Islamic boarding house in Salatiga, Central Java for two weeks in 2009.

Scholastics show the lessons they learnt from the people and from Fr Pedro Walpole SJ, Executive Director of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), a Philippine-based Jesuit research organization, about man’s relationship with the environment and how to sustain and preserve it in Wonosobo, Central Java, 2010