Armando Siahaan – Indonesia is home to an ever-growing number of film festivals. Some of the best of the past year have been the gay-themed Q! Film Festival, the Goelali Children's Film Festival and the Indonesian International Fantastic Film Festival (Inafff), which has a horror focus.

Of all these events, the Jakarta International Film Festival (Jiffest) is perhaps the most comprehensive representation of the film scene.

The festival gets underway on Friday with filmmaking duo Riri Reza and Mira Lesmana's "Sang Pemimpi" ("The Dreamer") and closes on Dec. 12 with an invitation-only screening of "New York I Love You," an anthology of 11 short love stories.

"Sang Pemimpi" is an adaptation of the second novel in a series of four by Andrea Hirata, based on the author's childhood in Bangka-Belitung, a province off the east coast of Sumatra. The movie version of the first novel in the series, "Laskar Pelangi" ("The Rainbow Troops"), was released last year to critical acclaim.

Festival manager Navaul Yazid said it was the first time in Jiffest's 11-year history that an Indonesian film had been selected for the opening night. "This shows the quality of our films is on a par with international films," he said.

A talking point at Jiffest this year is the scheduled screenings of two controversial films: "The 10 Conditions of Love," an Australian-made documentary about the Uighur leader, Rebiya Kadeer, who China has been blamed for deadly ethnic riots, and "Balibo," a dramatized account of the murder of five Australian-based journalists during the 1975 invasion of East Timor, which the Indonesian Military has urged censors to ban.

"10 Conditions" premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July, despite a demand from the Chinese government that the film be dumped. The decision to proceed with screening the film raised a furore against the festival organizers, which ran to hacker attacks on their official Web site, death threats and the withdrawal of seven Chinese-language films, whose directors said the event had become too politicized.

Nauval said Jiffest had yet to receive any complaints from the Chinese government. "The Chinese Embassy in Indonesia hasn't made any contact with us," he said.

As of Tuesday, Nauval said Jiffest was still waiting for approval to show "Balibo" from the Film Censorship Agency (LSF), which has formed a team to determine whether the film is too politically sensitive for domestic audiences. According to a law on film censorship, no film can be publicly screened without LSF approval.

"There's no indication [from the LSF] so far. No objections or other warnings," Nauval said. "We're still confident this film will be screened at Jiffest." He added that Jifffest had received no formal complaint from the military or the government on the issue.

Another Jiffest selection that may rankle some viewers is "Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country," which recounts the efforts of a band of video journalists to capture footage of the Burmese under the military junta and smuggle it out of the country.

However, Nauval emphasized that Jiffest is not trying to go political. "These movies are just as important as films like '500 Days of Summer' and 'Departures,' which are not about politics," he said.

"Departures," a Japanese film by Yojiro Takita, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Academy Awards. It tells the story of a cellist who loses his job after his orchestra is disbanded and takes a job as a nokanshi, someone who prepares corpses for burial.

Jiffest also has a program called the Madani (Civil) Film Festival, focusing on international films with an Islamic theme.

"Despite Indonesia being the country with the largest Muslim population, the general public has little knowledge of the lives of Muslims outside their own country," Nauval said. "Jiffest tries to show the lives of Muslims from other parts of the world."

Other noteworthy selections include "Letters to the President," an observational documentary about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime, told through the millions of letters sent to him by the people, and "Muallaf," a Malaysian film that chronicles the tales of three characters struggling to find religion.

The festival also features documentaries about prominent figures from different walks of life. "Love the Beast" documents Australian actor Eric Bana's 25-year romance with his first car, "Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz" tackles the issue of globalization from the Noble prize winner's perspective, and "The Beaches of Agnes" is a first-person documentary by French film director Agnes Varda.

Jiffest will be showing 23 Indonesian films in total, including the world premier of "Fugu," a movie by experimental filmmaker Faozan Rizal about a love triangle between Japanese newlyweds living in Jakarta and a local woman.

The festival, which is supported by Yayasan Masyarakat Mandiri Film Indonesia (The Independent Film Society Foundation), is also holding the Indonesian Feature Film Competition, which will see a panel of judges selecting the best Indonesian film and film director.

Jiffest organizers have also invited a number of speakers, including documentary maker Petr Lom, who directed "Letters to the President," and graphic designer Christian Scheurer, who has worked on visually compelling movies like "Final Fantasy" and "The Golden Compass."

Nauval said the aim of this was "to provide an alternative education for those who want to pursue a profession in the film world, or to the general public who are interested in those topics."

Jakarta International Film Festival 2009. Dec. 4 to Dec. 12. All movies will be screened exclusively at Blitz Megaplex, Grand Indonesia. For Jiffest schedule go to www.jiffest.org