page_title: Andjar Asmara
section_title: Film career and death
hierarchical_section_title: Andjar Asmara / Film career and death
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a promotional picture of Ratna Asmara for the 1940 film Kartinah.
context_page_description: Abisin Abbas, better known by his pseudonym Andjar Asmara, was a dramatist and filmmaker active in the cinema of the Dutch East Indies. Born in Alahan Panjang, West Sumatra, he first worked as a reporter in Batavia. He became a writer for the Padangsche Opera in Padang, where he developed a new, dialogue-centric style, which later spread throughout the region. After returning to Batavia in 1929, he spent over a year as a theatre and film critic. In 1930 he joined the Dardanella touring troupe as a writer. He went to India in an unsuccessful bid to film his stage play Dr Samsi.
  After leaving Dardanella in 1936, Andjar established his own troupe. He also worked at a publishers, writing serials based on successful films. In 1940 he was asked to join The Teng Chun's company, Java Industrial Film, helping with marketing and working as a director for two productions. After the Japanese occupation, during which time he stayed in theatre, Andjar made a brief return to cinema. He directed three films in the late 1940s and wrote four screenplays, which were produced as films in the early 1950s. He published a novel, Noesa Penida.
context_section_description: Upon his return to the Indies, Andjar formed another theatrical troupe, Bolero, with Effendi, but left the troupe around 1940 to work at Kolf Publishers in Surabaya. Effendi was left as the head of Bolero, which then became more politicised. At Kolf Andjar edited the publisher's magazine Poestaka Timoer. As his work entailed writing synopses and serials based on popular films for Kolf's magazine, he became increasingly involved in the film industry. He was soon asked by The Teng Chun, with whom he had maintained a business relationship, to direct a film for his company Java Industrial Film (JIF); with this Andjar became one of several noted theatrical personnel who migrated to film following Albert Balink's 1937 hit Terang Boelan (Full Moon).
  After handling the marketing for Rentjong Atjeh (Rencong of Aceh, 1940), Andjar made his directorial debut in 1940 with Kartinah, a war-time romance starring Ratna Asmara. Academia was critical of the film, believing it to lack educational value. In 1941 he directed Noesa Penida, a tragedy based in Bali, for JIF; the film was remade in 1988. In these films, he had little creative control, and performed as what the Indonesian entertainment journalist Eddie Karsito describes as a dialogue coach. Camera angles and locations were chosen by the cinematographer, who was generally also the producer.
  During the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945, the nation's film industry nearly ceased to exist: all but one studio were closed, and all films released were propaganda pieces to assist the Japanese war effort and promote the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Andjar was not involved in these but was excited by the artistic merits of Japanese films. Although he wrote several short stories during this time, three of which were published in the pro-Japanese newspaper Asia Raja in 1942, Andjar focused on theatre, forming the troupe Tjahaya Timoer. He often visited the Cultural Centre (Keimin Bunka Sidosho) in Jakarta, where two employees, D. Djajakusuma and Usmar Ismail, discussed filmmaking with him. Both became influential film directors during the 1950s.
  After Indonesia's independence, Andjar moved to Purwokerto to lead the daily Perdjoeangan Rakjat. After the paper collapsed, he returned to film, film a piece entitled Djaoeh Dimata for the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration in 1948. This was followed by two additional films, Anggrek Bulan (Moon Orchid; 1948) and Gadis Desa (Maiden from the Village; 1949), both based on plays he wrote several years earlier. In 1950, Andjar published his only novel, Noesa Penida, a critique of the Balinese caste system, which followed lovers from different levels of the social hierarchy. Meanwhile, he continued to write and publish paperback serials adapted from local films.
  Andjar's screenplay Dr Samsi was finally adapted as a film in 1952 by Ratna Asmara, who had become Indonesia's first female film director with her 1950 film Sedap Malam (Sweetness of the Night). The adaptation starred Ratna and Raden Ismail. It would prove Andjar's last screenwriting credit during his lifetime. Although no longer writing films, Andjar remained active in the country's film industry. In 1955 he headed the inaugural Indonesian Film Festival, which was criticized when it gave the Best Picture Award to two films, Usmar Ismail's Lewat Djam Malam (After the Curfew) and Lilik Sudjio's Tarmina. Critics wrote that Lewat Djam Malam was easily the stronger of the two and suggested that Djamaluddin Malik, Tarmina's producer, had influenced the jury's decision.
  In 1958 Asmara became the head of the entertainment magazine Varia, where the fellow director Raden Ariffien served as his deputy. Asmara held the position until his death; among other roles, he wrote a series of memoires on the history of theatre in the country. He died on 20 October 1961 in Cipanas, West Java, during a trip to Bandung and was buried in Jakarta.
caption: Andjar's wife, Ratna, was the first female film director in Indonesian history.
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