Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival Marks 20 Years as Southeast Asia’s Grassroots Champion: ‘Films That Speak Honestly to the Region’s Realities’

When the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF) launched in 2006 during Yogyakarta’s 250th anniversary celebration, it was a modest communal experiment driven by young filmmakers and volunteers. A major earthquake nearly cancelled the first edition, but the community’s insistence on continuing established a resilience that has become core to the festival’s identity.

Two decades later, JAFF has transformed from a local cultural gathering into a regional platform with national and global attention, screening 227 films from 47 Asia-Pacific countries at its 20th edition.

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“When we started, JAFF was essentially a group of filmmakers, volunteers, and audiences in Yogyakarta trying to build a space where Asian independent cinema could meet their audiences,” festival director Ifa Isfansyah tells Variety. “The biggest shift today is scale. But at its core, the identity hasn’t changed. We are still driven by community, conversation, and films that speak honestly to the region’s realities.”

The festival’s early years were defined by visibility battles and infrastructure challenges. Volunteers hand-carried film prints, arranged makeshift subtitles with PowerPoint presentations, and created stages from borrowed materials. The first edition was held not in proper cinemas but in a stage performance building, featuring films the organizers felt they could relate to and potentially make themselves.

“Southeast Asian cinema wasn’t yet on the radar of major institutions,” Isfansyah recalls. “We had to convince partners and audiences that these films mattered, even without big names or marketing machines. JAFF had to function almost like an ecosystem builder, not just a festival.”

That advocacy-driven approach proved transformative for Indonesian independent cinema. The festival grew in parallel with the country’s cinema resurgence after 2000, becoming a home for early shorts, debut features, and experimental films.

“Indonesian independent cinema has moved from the margins to becoming a vital narrative force,” says Isfansyah. “The biggest change is confidence. Filmmakers now know their stories deserve the international stage.”

The festival’s impact on exhibition infrastructure has been substantial. Commercial cinema chains have recognized that independent films have an audience, with recent successes including Reza Rahadian’s “Pangku” achieving strong box office performance. Local digital platforms like KlikFilm have found their niche and audience after partnering with JAFF.

While festivals like Busan, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hanoi provide industry-driven platforms, JAFF has cultivated a more intimate, grassroots approach. The festival positions itself as a space where filmmakers generate new language, new collaborations, and new courage.

“Our mission has evolved to bridge the creative and the communal,” Isfansyah explains. “We want to be a place where filmmakers don’t just showcase work but feel supported. Everyone comes to JAFF with one reason: love of watching film.”

The festival’s curatorial approach has evolved from necessity-driven risk-taking to intentional experimentation. Today’s programming challenges formats, platforms hybrid works, and opens conversations intersecting cinema with activism, memory, and indigenous knowledge.

However, creative freedom has faced new constraints. While early editions screened films without censorship, all films at current editions must pass the censorship board.

“In the early years, we had more freedom that we don’t have now,” Isfansyah acknowledges. “But today we can platform films that are politically delicate or structurally radical because we’ve earned the trust of the community and the region.”

JAFF’s sustainability model combines government grants, national and local sponsorships, cultural institutions, box office revenue, Sahabat Hanoman memberships, and program-based partnerships with platforms including Netflix, Vidio, and KlikFilm.

The festival has expanded beyond its annual event into a year-round cultural engine, with industry platform JAFF Market, JAFF Community Forum, and educational programs ensuring continuity. Partnerships with Netpac have been particularly significant, bringing networks of mentors, jury members, and collaborators while strengthening regional solidarity.

“Netpac has been a cornerstone for us,” says Isfansyah, noting that the partnership was especially valuable in early editions when organizers were filmmakers without festival experience.

This year’s 20th anniversary lineup prioritizes films carrying sincerity, urgency, and cultural resonance, addressing displacement, ecological trauma, youth identity, and artistic rebellion. The programming balances premieres with local spotlights, including a closing film representing the first feature from a filmmaker who grew with JAFF.

Sections include Main Competition, Light of Asia, Emerging, Panorama, Asian Perspective Features and Shorts, Indonesian Screen Awards, Community Forum, Rewind, masterclasses, public lectures, workshops, and special screenings.

Yogyakarta’s audience has become more visually literate, global in perspective, and vocal, with younger viewers embracing hybrid and experimental works. However, the warmth and curiosity that defined early editions remains.

“They still watch with their whole heart, and that energy continues to define JAFF,” Isfansyah says. “Sometimes I feel they know more about JAFF itself, since the energy of the festival is getting younger and I’m getting old.”

To ensure standout titles don’t get lost in platform saturation, JAFF focuses on meaningful visibility through contextual programming. Public lectures, workshops, and screenings frame films to stand out through conversation rather than algorithms. The festival also builds bridges between filmmakers and regional festivals, critics, curators, platforms, and labs.

“In an oversaturated world, curation and community are more powerful than ever,” Isfansyah notes.

Reflecting on two decades, Isfansyah identifies early organizational chaos as something he’d change, noting that earlier investment in infrastructure, archives, workflows, and dedicated year-round teams would have accelerated growth. The decision to focus on one festival center helped consolidate energy around what he considers the core of the festival: meeting people.

However, the sense of family from early editions remains non-negotiable. The open, spontaneous energy where filmmakers, students, professionals, and audiences gathered together represents a spirit of belonging the festival is determined to protect as it scales.

“Success is when a filmmaker tells us that JAFF made them feel braver to tell their own story,” Isfansyah says. “When audiences, filmmakers, students, volunteers, professionals, and communities feel a sense of ownership of the festival, then we’ve succeeded.”

As JAFF enters its third decade, the festival continues balancing local community service with international relevance by staying grounded in Yogyakarta.

“We always begin with the local. Yogyakarta is the soul of JAFF,” Isfansyah emphasizes. “Every festival must have responsibility with their territory. When our programming is honest to that community, the international relevance follows naturally.”