Yosep Anggi Noen, whose “24 Hours with Gaspar” premiered at Busan and is playing at the Red Sea and Singapore festivals, has lined up his next movie, an untitled horror film.
The film is produced by Palari Films, the Jakarta-based production company behind Edwin’s “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,” which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2021. Noen is no stranger to Locarno glory himself, having been nominated in 2012 for “Peculiar Vacation and Other Illnesses” and in 2016 for “Solo, Solitude” and scored a special mention in 2019 for “The Science of Fictions.”
The untitled horror-drama-thriller film, produced by Palari’s Muhammad Zaidy and Meiske Taurisia, will unite acclaimed actors Happy Salma and Putri Marino for the first time. Salma was nominated for best actress at the Asian Film Awards and best performance at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for Kamila Andini’s “Before Now & Then” (2022). Palari is collaborating with Marino for the third time, following the success of her debut film ”Posesif,” which earned her the Citra Award for best actress at the Indonesian Film Festival 2017. Their second collaboration, “Borderless Fog,” a Netflix original film directed by Edwin, is due to release imminently.
Indonesia‘s Alim Sudio (“Monster”) is the writer on the horror project alongside Noen. Malaysia’s Teoh Gay Hian (“24 Hours with Gaspar,” “Yuni”) is the cinematographer.
Horror films are one of the most popular genres in Indonesia, accounting for four of the top 10 all-time highest-grossing films in the country, with the highest audience numbers reaching 10 million viewers. This is the first time that both Palari and Noen are venturing into the genre.
“Yosep Anggi Noen creates works with artistic exploration that represent Indonesian cinema on the world stage. His films have received numerous awards from various international film festivals such as Locarno and Busan. We believe that collaborating on our first feature-length horror with Noen can deliver an authentic and captivating horror movie,” said Zaidy.
Noen added: “I am challenged to make a horror film, a genre beloved by audiences in Indonesia and worldwide. The focus of this film is on a mother who loses her child.”
The film is due to start principal photography in January in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.