Skip to main content
Sculpting the Giant film image

Sculpting the Giant

This event has passed

World Premiere

Directors Rheza Arden and Banu Wirandoko document a 28-year quest for glory in this engrossing film. Indonesian sculptor Nyoman Nuarta’s goal is to build the world’s largest brass and copper structure: the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue. Featuring two Hindu gods, the statue is to be located in an abandoned limestone quarry in Bali, which Nyoman plans to turn into a park. To meet his objective, the artist will have to contend with public opposition, political turmoil, and many other obstacles… Using animation, archival footage, and time-lapse photography among other tools, Arden and Wirandoko paint a vivid picture of large-scale obsession. The footage of the GWK construction is often breathtaking, and in Nyoman, the filmmakers have a multifaceted subject to centre their film on — he is both businessman and artist, visionary and pragmatist, megalomaniac and humble family man. Fascinating, suspenseful, and marked by moments of vertiginous beauty, Sculpting the Giant is a truly remarkable documentary.

 

October 2 & 4: Q&A with co-director Rheza Arden Wiguna & crew

 

Presented by

Series Media Partner

Community Partner

Directors
Cast

Nyoman Nuarta, Cynthia Lakshmi Nuarta

Credits
Country of Origin

Indonesia

Year

2022

Series

Portraits

Language

In Bahasa Indonesia and English with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Graphic Violence

18+
87 min
Documentary

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits

Executive Producer

Julian Grimmond, John Fitzgerald

Producer

Maulana Aziz

Screenwriter

Maulana Aziz, Sutansyah Marahakim

Cinematography

Dini Aristya Wulandari

Editor

Dini Aristya Wulandari

Original Music

Bintang Olii

Directors

Banu Wirandoko headshot
Rheza Arden Wiguna headshot

Banu Wirandoko & Rheza Arden Wiguna

With an educational background in Fine Arts, Banu Wirandoko and Rheza Arden Wiguna have developed a refined taste for visual arts. Both have been exploring audiovisual design techniques together since 2012 and fell in love with film and video as means of storytelling. Combining Rheza’s whimsical visual explorations with Banu’s astute musical sensibilities, they teamed up as first-time filmmakers in directing Sculpting The Giant.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

It Was Just an Accident

Dir. Jafar Panahi
105 min

Having offered some late-night assistance to a stranger in the wake of an auto accident, a mechanic grows convinced that he recognizes the supposed stranger’s voice as that of his torturer during a grueling prison spell.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Track

Dir. Ryan Sidhoo
91 min

In the middle of a mountain forest above Sarajevo, three boys train for the Olympics in a bullet-ridden luge track abandoned since the 1984 Winter Games. An ambitious, hopeful look at the next generation striving to overcome the sins of their fathers.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Breaking the Waves

Dir. Lars von Trier
158 min

Kicking off our 2026 Pantheon series of the greatest films ever made, Lars von Trier's 1996 masterpiece is a devastating melodrama featuring an indelible performance from Emily Watson as the woman whose love for her husband knows no bounds.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Happy Holidays

Dir. Scandar Copti
123 min

Happy Holidays (the title is ironic) is an expansive, acutely observed sociopolitical family saga which thoughtfully considers the myriad intricacies of Israeli Arab life.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Yunan

Dir. Ameer Fakher Eldin
125 min

In this haunting mood piece, Munir is a middle-aged Syrian writer in exile in Germany. In crisis, he takes himself up to one of the Halligan islands in the North Sea, a suitable place to end it all...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The Secret Agent

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho
158 min

Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema