On Thursday June 20th, the 2024’s Pandora was held. As one of the implementation of the P5 (Proyek Penguatan Profil Pelajar Pancasila) program for tenth-graders, SMA Pembangunan Jaya held an art and culture event each year called “Pandora”, short for “Panggung Dolanan Bahasa dan Sastra”. This program is a form of assessment in the field of art and culture for the tenth-grade students who have been using the “Merdeka” curriculum. For Pandora, tenth-graders were asked to create a form of acting creation, and then on the final celebration those creations are then going to be shown with a few other performances by the eleventh-graders.
This year’s Pandora was themed “My Language, My Identity”. On this Pandora, unlike the one last year, the acting performance was filmed and shown in the form of a short movies. Also a new concept on this Pandora is that there were 3 separate short movies representing each three classes individualy. The challenge/task given to the tenth-grader in making this short film is to incorporate elements of local language and tradtional values into it.
The event was opened with cultural-with-a-twist performances by the eleventh-graders. Then it was quickly followed by a talkshow with Afrian Arisandy, an artist, actor, and a highschool religion teacher from Sidoarjo who’s a cast in one of the most trending horror movie recently, “Siksa Kubur”. The talkshow discussed about Afrian’s experiences in the cinematic industry, his time filming siksa kubur, his valeus and creations as an actor who’s also a teacher, and tips for the students who wanted to pursue a career in art and cinema. The next part of the event is the main one – the premier of each clasess’s short movie and a q&a session with its casts and production members. From fantasy to romance to horror themed, the tenth-grade students showcase their talents in film making and acting. A few classes also showed the behind the scene footages that added a lot more depth to their creation. The next event is no less intriguing, it is the official announcement and release of the two books (fiction and poetry) by the eleventh-graders. And last but certainly far from the least, the event ended with an awarding session to the short movies and performances, where the awarded movies’s directors (Kalila ’26 & Nenggo ’26) shared their experiences and struggles in the making of their respective short movies.
To get closer about the making of the movies, The Arc asked one of the cast, Aisyah Farra ’26 to describe her experience :
“For the experience of being the main character in the short film Pandora, it was really exhausting because the role had the most scenes and I frequently appeared. It was truly exhausting, especially during the production of Pandora when I was sick to the point of losing my voice. Overall, it was exciting because I learned a lot from this project. For example, I learned how to manage facial expressions and emotions. In Pandora, since I couldn’t read the text, I had to memorize it. From this experience, I learned how to memorize lines quickly, though I did forget a few sentences. There were ups and downs in this project, but through Pandora, my friends and I realized how important teamwork and class unity are. It was definitely tiring and stressful due to managing time and taking care of myself during late-night shoots, sometimes skipping meals. But working with friends made it less exhausting; their support was motivating. What made Pandora enjoyable was spending time with friends during our final school days, creating many memorable moments. The production process was quite confusing because we had to redo several scenes, shooting from different points of view. During filming, there were many challenges, such as numerous retakes due to my voice being lost from illness, not performing at my best, forgetting lines, and one scene where I had to jump into a pool for a perfect shot, even though it hurt my legs. However, seeing the smooth and excellent results made me very happy. During shooting, my friends and I didn’t feel too exhausted because we worked together, supporting each other and sharing jokes to lighten the mood. Overall, we didn’t feel much difficulty, except perhaps in building chemistry with actors of the opposite gender, especially if not close. It could be awkward, but as part of filming, we had to remain professional, even when holding hands during rehearsals was nerve-wracking.”
To know a little more about the background and intentions of this year’s Pandora, its theme and the experience in putting it together, The Arc asked this year’s Pandora’s chief organizer, Mr. Gigih Pebrianto :
“Pandora is one of the P5 projects. In 10th grade, there are three P5 projects: religious fest, global entrepreneurship week, and Pandora. Pandora is specifically focused on activities for 10th grade students, hence it’s more centered around them. Compared to last year, this year’s focus is slightly different. Last year emphasized on drama or theater, whereas this year it’s more focused on film. This decision stems from the consideration that the current 10th grade students have more inclination towards film rather than drama or theater. This can be seen from the achievements of Kalila, Nenggo, and Chelsi, who recently made it to the provincial level in FLS2N, marking the first time SMA Pembangunan Jaya SDA has achieved this. Therefore, our focus is on film. 11th grade students are still involved, though the primary focus remained on the 10th graders. This parallels the implementation of P5 Artomic, which was an 11th graders’s project involving the 10th grade students. There’s mutual support between the different grades, but the assessment for P5 remained focused within each class’s own spectrum. And at the end of the event, we had an appreciation event for the best film and performances.”, Mr Gigih explained about this year’s Pandora’s background. When talking about this Pandora’s struggles and challenges he said, “The film production process proved to be quite complex compared to drama. For drama, we only need to prepare the script, stage, and then practiced it. But for film, it’s more complicated due to varying settings—indoors and outdoors. Especially with outdoor scenes, there are issues with permits, access to locations, and scheduling conflicts between school activities and shooting outside. All these factors make filmmaking more challenging compared to drama. Moreover, during the Pandora implementation from June 5th to 20th, it coincided with class meeting, Eid al-Adha, campus expos, and many other activities. This overlap posed significant challenges, especially for 10th grade students”. “As for the outcome, I think the outcome was quite good. I especially appreciate class 10B—actually, all classes in tenth grade, including 10A, 10B, and 10C, did really well. However, the short movies from 10B and 10C that were selected as the best and second-best were outstanding. They showed tremendous dedication in their work on Pandora, achieving maximum effort in their movies, despite some shortcomings such as missing subtitles or subpar audio quality. Considering how busy the last two weeks were, I believe this was the best result possible.”, He continued. To express his impressions and messages for this year’s Pandora he mentioned, “Pandora always marks the end of the academic year’s activities, hoping it serves as a memorable final project for both 10th and 11th graders. This year, we conceptualized a project for 11th graders to create a book, aiming for it to be their last project before leaving for 12th grade. This way, when they reach their senior year, they can look back on their time in 11th grade, remembering that they once authored a book. It’s not just a memory for 11th graders but also for 10th graders. As they move to 11th grade, they have the memory of creating a movie. Ultimately, we hope these experiences become cherished memories after graduating from SMA Pembangunan Jaya SDA—like for them to recount their experiences and saying, “I once made a film, published a book, etc.” Hopefully, future activities of Pandora will run even smoother, without obstacles, and will be more vibrant with newer concepts”.
Both of our source person’s statements encapsulates and proof that this year’s Pandora really brought the students’s inner-artists and new founded sense of appreciation towards their local cultures and language. And with the constant concept renewal, it is exciting to see what Pandora has to offer next year!
Editor in Chief : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Journalist : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Editor & Translator : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Documentation : event’s photographer
English 
Indonesian
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