Dr. Huyung Biography
Born in Korea. Died in Jakarta. Came to Indonesia, under the name (Japan) Inatsu Hetaro, as an officer of the Japanese army who occupied Indonesia, 1942-1945. Among his films that was saved by Sinematek Indonesia (SI) was Between Heaven and Sky (1950). The name of this graduate from the Faculty of Letters at Waseda University (Japan, 1938) has been discussed again, and internationally, because Frieda (aka Between Earth and Heaven) was screened by two festival organizers, Yamagata International Documentary Film (Japan, 6 - 13 October) and Pusan, South Korea, on 11 - 19 October 1997.
Huyung's film, positive and the only one, obtained by SI from R.M. Harjoto, who was involved in making the PFN production with Stichting Entertainment Mataram. The head of SI, H Misbach Yusa Biran, wrote a brief history for the Japanese-language book, which in 1992 was read by researchers from Korea. 1994 came the Korean TV crew, who played footage Between Earth and Sky, in addition to broadcasting the results of an interview with the head of SI.
The organizers of the Pusan Festival (South Korea) were interested, then contacted Sinematek Indonesia. Because the negative of Huyung's work has disappeared, Pusan is ready to make an inter-negative from the positive of the Sinematek Indonesia collection. In collaboration with the organizers of the Yamagata Festival, a (new) negative was made at Cinematek Australia.
After Pusan and Yamagata got positive, then the negative was handed over to Sinematek Indonesia as a 'reward'. During the occupation, Huyung was assigned to 'safe' Indonesian theater groups, for the sake of Japanese war propaganda. After the Japanese surrender, Huyung settled in Indonesia. Passing on his film (and theater) knowledge to Indonesians in Yogya.
Including Soemardjono and Usmar Ismail (1921-1971). In 1951 Huyung made 3 other films, Sport Girl, Memories of the Time and Bunga Rumah Makan. Originally Between Earth and Heaven was going to make a kiss scene. However, the public's reaction was so strong, that it was forced to make changes, and circulated with a new title, Frieda. The kissing scene (and sex) was just 'bustling' starting in the 1970s.
