“Madani film” is a term that is closely related to the Madani International Film Festival. Ekky Imanjaya and Hikmat Darmawan started from a belief in the idea that there is an opportunity to talk about the living (world of) Islam, not just Islam as a doctrine–as a contribution to the global conversation about current issues and common problems facing humanity.

Ekky Imanjaya has offered a more discursive notion in his book, Mencari Film Madani (Jakarta Arts Council, 2019), for the term “Madani film”. In his definition, Ekky confines the film to those that represent the everyday world of Islam–the Islamic world in the literal sense of “living Islam”, as cited by Ekky based on Akbar S. Ahmed and Magnus Marsden. For Ekky, “Madani films” are “films that tell stories about muslims and their particular problems.”

The Madani International Film Festival also recognizes that a representation about muslim problems can be present in films produced by nonmuslim majority countries, with nonmuslim directors, crew, and actors. As long as a film talks about or raises various issues of “living Islam” (Islam in the everyday life), then it belongs to “Madani film”.

Selected Films: Criteria

This list is created to both “make it easy” and “celebrate”. It can be used to facilitate an introduction to a “Madani film”. It is an illustration of the wealth of colors of human issues in the Islamic world, which makes up the festival’s thematic aspect. It can also become an impetus for further discussion about what “Madani films” are, starting a broader characterization of the everyday Islamic world that becomes the representation of muslim issues in the films we offer or in the “real” world outside of films.

This list is subjective. There are no ratings, although there is clearly some sort of selection based on what we consider to be a film’s substantial achievements. In other words, we work based on “favoritism” and esthetic judgments that we believe in. However, we have no pretense that our judgment is the final word about Madani films nor about the intrinsic quality of the films we discuss. Instead, we really hope that this list will ignite the viewers’ desire to create their own list of “Madani films” in their minds.

Therefore, richer, wider, more substantial conversations will emerge about Islamic films or Islamic themed films. Regarding the criteria that we set to consider a film to be on the list, we just follow simple benchmarks.

First, the films we select must raise a muslim problem as the theme, both in muslim-majority and minority countries. Issues and topics of Islam and muslims are not just a mere background or embellishment. Islam and muslim society and individuals raised must indeed be substantial in these films.

Second, we also have to assess a film for its certain form of achievement. It means that there is some significance, at least ambition, esthetics, and awareness, to explore the best form for the filmmakers’ ideas. We must be careful in this case. We don’t want to be gatekeepers of, or constructing, “good” or “bad” tastes for the public in watching Madani films. At the same time, we feel the need of a certain facilitator role for the flexible readings of the films we offer–highlighting what cinematic elements to pay attention to, what context can help read a film, and so on.

Third, within this framework of thinking, we also want this list not to satisfy only one group of people in the Indonesian film-going subculture–only satisfying either the “ideological audience” (who measure films only based on ideological agendas, such as preaching a certain lifestyle) or the “cinephile audience” who are indeed trained film audience. We try to facilitate a balance between the communicated idea of film with a Madani character amid the wider public and appreciation for the achievement of a filmmaker’s exploration of forms and esthetic ambitions.

In other words, we would like have the representation of both “idea film” and “poetic film” as well as of both “popular film” and “art film” on this list. Our aim is not to offer the extremes, but rather to offer a spectrum.

Hikmat Darmawan