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

Everyone Is Lying to You for Money

Dir. Ben McKenzie
89 min

In which former OC star Ben McKenzie brushes off his economics degree and digs into the cryptocurrency conundrum. If bitcoin is truly all about transparency, how come no one can explain it?

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Erupcja

Dir. Pete Ohs
72 min

Charli xcx headlines this indie gem about a young English couple coming unmoored over a few days in Warsaw. Will means to propose. Beth has cold feet -- and an escape hatch she has barely admitted to herself... Think Before Sunrise 2025.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Suburban Fury

Dir. Robinson Devor
120 min

Sara Jane Moore was a 1970s housewife who took the unusual step of trying to assassinate the President of the United States. An action that cost her dearly. This is her story.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Do You Love Me

Dir. Lana Daher
75 min

Lana Daher's bravura and defiant non-fiction film is a cultural-historical self-portrait of Beirut, comprised entirely of film clips (many of them from dramatic features, but also from news reports, TV and home video) culled from the last 70 years.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other

Dir. Manon Ouimet & Jacob Perlmutter
100 min

This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.

Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story

Dir. Sinéad O'Shea
99 min

Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre