East Timor’s first soap opera, ‘Suku Hali,’ mends fences with melodrama
CNNGo September 24, 2010 — Forget Australian caravan park and U.S. hospital dramas: “This is a story about Timorese life,” says 21-year-old Timorese actor Asala de Jesus, who will soon debut on the small screen in “Suku Hali,” East Timor’s first soap opera.
“When you come from the mountains you face many problems. It’s a true story, not just something the writers are saying.”
De Jesus plays Agus, a young man who arrives in East Timor’s capital city of Dili from the mountains with his brother, Atoi. While Atoi becomes tangled in a web of crime and recklessness, Agus tries to find work and stay out of trouble.
Their divergent paths reflect modern-day life in East Timor, known officially as the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. In the country of 1.1 million people, many are increasingly making the move to Dili from the countryside in the hope of finding education and work, he adds.
“In Dili, life is more difficult than in the mountains. In Dili, everything is about money.”
The brothers fall out when they are given a broken-down mikrolet (a large passenger van) by their parents. Agus is desperate to earn money to fix the vehicle while his wily brother wants merely to sell it.
Looking back to move forward
“Suku Hali” isn’t a routine tale of urban migration. A 24-year occupation by the Indonesian military that cost more than 100,000 lives ended in East Timor in 1999, giving way to independence in 2002. However it remains one of the world’s poorest nations, with 42 percent of its citizens living below the poverty line.
In 2006, Dili was ripped apart by conflict when a split in the armed forces led to fighting between the military, police and rival gangs. Some 150,000 people fled their homes, and four years on, the memories are still raw.
The last several years represent one of the longest periods of post-independence stability in East Timor, giving the nation’s people a needed breather for reflection. It’s hoped that by recognizing parallels between the plotlines in “Suku Hali” and their own experiences, viewers will not only be entertained, but will also feel compelled to contemplate the past collectively, says Tomas Soares, 26, one of the show’s writers.
“The city is mysterious for these two brothers because they don’t know about Dili. Everything in Dili is interconnected and after the conflict, everything changed: relationships with each other, livelihoods, education. Everyone has to start as new,” he adds.
Locally produced television programs are few and far between in East Timor, but that hasn’t hurt the popularity of Indonesian soaps and movies, something on which the makers of “Suku Hali” are hoping to capitalize.
“We know that Timorese people like to watch romantic shows — something with love in it — so that’s why we combined a love story and conflict and fun into one show, to make it interesting,” says Natalina dos Santos, 26, another of the show’s writers.
International support
“Suku Hali” is a project of the International Organization for Migration, led by Australian creative communications consultant Toby Gibson, who is producing the show and who trained the predominantly Timorese crew.
“We’ve had to construct a story about the crisis in 2006 without directly mentioning it. We really couldn’t show the crisis or conflict because if you start getting into that then you start pointing fingers,” he says.
“Our mandate was just to generate dialogue about a whole lot of things stemming from community conflict and the crisis of 2006. Everyone here in Dili suffers as a result of it.”
The overarching themes of the show are “choose your future” and “everything is interconnected,” something from which people will learn a lot, says assistant director-cum-actor Luis Magno, 27.
“It’s educational because it covers social issues like violence and peace building, and that’s want we want to show to the audience,” he says.
“I hope that with ‘Suku Hali’ we can make people understand what happened and that we need to make a change for the future.”
Filming for “Suku Hali”’s 20 half-hour episodes is about two-thirds complete and the show is expected to begin airing late September or early October.