Silk Screen Asian Arts & Culture Organization

Regent Square Theater: May 18 @ 9:30 PM 

Content Advisory: This film contains explicit sexual content.

“Lovely Man” offers up the story of one night between a teenage girl and her estranged father. One night that alters their lives forever. 

 Cahaya ignores her mother’s wishes and hops a train to Jakarta in hopes of a reunion with her long lost father. She doesn’t have a picture or a concrete memory of this man beyond the age of four. Her only clue to the whereabouts of the stranger is a crumpled slip of paper with his address located in the red light district of the city. 

The naïve nineteen year old is dismayed to discover her father on a dank bridge with transvestite streetwalkers. Night after night in a red dress, high heels, and a shoulder length wig, Cahaya’s father (aka “Ipuy”) makes his living selling himself to other men.  

Despite her shock, Cahaya insists on obtaining answers to all of her questions. Ipuy’s reluctance eventually gives way to the stubborn girl. “Just like your mother,” he says. So Cahaya and Ipuy create a pact: for one night they will answer each other’s questions, but with the sunrise they will part ways. It is a night neither will forget. Cahaya reveals deep secrets of her own, and Ipuy finally faces his fears of fatherhood. 

In a short 76 minutes, Director Teddy Soeriaatmadja creates an intimate and powerful story about the beauty of a rekindled relationship in spite of its ugly surroundings.