Film Screening: Forbidden Door (2009), Dir. Joko Anwar

🎟️ About the Film

The Forbidden Door follows a successful young sculptor whose seemingly perfect life unravels when he starts receiving mysterious pleas for help. As he investigates, he becomes obsessed with disturbing hidden-camera footage showing a horribly abused boy and discovers dark secrets involving a shadowy organisation and even his own wife. His quest to uncover the truth blurs the line between reality and madness, forcing him to confront the deepest—and most terrifying—parts of himself.

📣 About the Filmmaker

Joko Anwar is one of Indonesia's most distinctive and influential filmmakers, with a cult following that has steadily grown over a career that spans two decades. Beginning his career as a journalist and screenwriter, he emerged as a director with films that fuse psychological horror, social satire, and dark humour, often pushing against mainstream expectations of Indonesian film. They regularly gallop around the world in international film festivals, with his latest making its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival this year. The sequel to his hugely successful film Satan's Slaves remains the sixth highest-grossing film in Indonesia of all time. This combination of cult appeal at home and growing global recognition has made Joko Anwar a key figure in contemporary Asian and world cinema. Recently, Anwar has been awarded the prestigious cultural honour Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, placing the director among a distinguished list of recipients that includes Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Tim Burton, Pedro Almodóvar, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Hayao Miyazaki.

🎞️ About the Production Company

Forbidden Door marks producer Sheila Timothy's first work under her production company Lifelike Pictures. Starting off by fearlessly supporting auteur Joko Anwar's — only his third feature film at the time — vision, Timothy went on to produce a variety of works crossing multiple genres and platforms, from indie horror, big-budget action, to culinary-themed TV series. Instrumental in the effort of getting foreign investment into the Indonesian film industry, Timothys's Wiro Sableng 212 became the first co-production between Twentieth Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios) and an Indonesian film company.

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