Joko Anwar

Joko Anwar (born 3 January 1976) is an Indonesian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor.

Prior to becoming a filmmaker, he worked as a journalist and film critic.

After graduating in 1999, he became a journalist and film critic at The Jakarta Post.

Anwar's first film production experience came as an assistant director in Sekar Ayu Asmara's directorial debut Biola Tak Berdawai in 2002.

During an interview with Nia Dinata, who was gaining praise for her 2002 release Ca-bau-kan, for The Jakarta Post, Anwar impressed the filmmaker who in turn asked him to join a project she was working on.

Anwar first rose to prominence for co-writing Nia Dinata's 2003 hit Arisan! which won five awards at the 2004 Citra Award.

The two co-wrote the screenplay for what would be Dinata's biggest hit to date Arisan! released in 2003.

The film won rave reviews and snatched multiple Best Film awards at the 2004 Citra Award, the 2004 MTV Indonesia Movie Awards, and the 2004 Bandung Film Festival.

Dinata and Anwar also won praise for their screenplay, receiving a Citra Award nomination for Best Screenplay.

He then made his feature film directorial debut with the romantic comedy Joni's Promise in 2005, gaining a Best Director nomination at the 2005 Citra Award.

In 2005, Anwar made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy Joni's Promise (Janji Joni) with a star-studded cast that includes Nicholas Saputra, Mariana Renata, Rachel Maryam, Surya Saputra, and dozens of celebrity cameos, including Nia Dinata, based on a story he first wrote in 1998.

The film propelled Anwar to mainstream success as it became a box office hit and earned 9 nominations at the 2005 Citra Award, including Best Film and Best Director for Anwar, losing to the biographical drama Gie and Hanung Bramantyo (Brownies) respectively.

The film was credited with reviving the career of Barry Prima, an international martial artist and actor, who is Anwar's childhood hero.

He has since directed a wide range of genres: the noir thriller Dead Time: Kala (2007), psychological thriller The Forbidden Door (2009), supernatural horror Satan's Slaves (2017) and its sequel Satan's Slaves 2: Communion (2022), and live-action superhero Gundala (2019).

Anwar has won 3 Citra Awards out of 13 nominations for directing and screenwriting.

In 2007, Joko Anwar wrote and directed Dead Time: Kala, Indonesia's first film noir feature film.

It won rave reviews from critics with Sight & Sound picking it as one of the year's best while naming Anwar as one of the smartest filmmakers in Asia.

The film was screened at numerous film festivals and won a Jury Prize at the 2007 New York Asian Film Festival.

The Hollywood Reporter praised the film as "a sophisticated noir whodunit in homage to Fritz Lang's M".

In the same year, Anwar wrote the screenplay for two other major releases: Dimas Djayadiningrat's sex comedy Quickie Express and an adaptation of Moammar Emka's best-selling novel, Jakarta Undercover.

The former won Best Film at the 2008 Jakarta International Film Festival.

In 2008, Anwar co-wrote the screenplay for psychological thriller fiksi., Mouly Surya's directorial debut.

The film was a huge hit and received universal acclaim.

At the 2008 Citra Award, it received 10 nominations and won 4, including Best Screenplay, giving Anwar his first Citra Award.

Anwar explored the psychological thriller genre in his next film, The Forbidden Door (Pintu Terlarang), which was released in 2009.

Starring Fachri Albar and Marsha Timothy as a married couple with dark secrets, the film gained notable recognition from the international film community.

TIME magazine film critic Richard Corliss wrote that the film could be "Anwar's calling card for international employment, if only Hollywood moguls wanted something out of their own narrow range" and that it is "an example of what movies could be but rarely dare to try".

Maggie Lee of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it "would make [Alfred] Hitchcock and [Pedro] Almodóvar proud" while praising Anwar for "[accessorizing] his creepy suspense-horror with a dazzling array of auteur-homage".

The film was screened at several international film festivals, including The Times BFI London Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, where it won the Best of Bucheon award.

In the same year, he also played a minor role in Macabre, Timo Tjahjanto's and Kimo Stamboel's breakout slasher hit.

In 2013, he appeared as a shady film producer in Sammaria Simanjuntak's satirical comedy Demi Ucok.

He won the Best Director Awards twice: in 2015 for the urban drama A Copy of My Mind and in 2020 for the folk horror Impetigore as well as the Best Screenplay Award in 2008 for co-writing Mouly Surya's Fiksi..

He has also been nominated for a total of 7 Maya Awards, winning Best Director for Satan's Slaves in 2017.

As of 2022, Anwar has two films in the top 10 list of highest-grossing Indonesian films of all-time: Satan's Slaves 2: Communion at No. 3 with 6.39 million admissions and Satan's Slaves at No. 9 with 4.2 million admissions.

As an actor, Anwar has appeared in multiple films, including starring roles in Edwin's award-winning feature film debut Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly opposite Ladya Cheryl.

In 2019, Indonesia Tatler included Anwar in its list of the most influential film directors in modern Indonesian cinema.

Anwar was born in Medan, North Sumatra where he grew up watching kung fu and horror films.

He went to SMA Negeri 1 Medan, a public school, and spent a year in the United States as an exchange student at the Wheeling Park High School in West Virginia.

He wrote and directed plays as a student.

While he wanted to study filmmaking, he went to enroll at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) to study Aeronautical Engineering because his family could not afford to send him to a film school.