We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michelle Sastraatmadja a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I started getting into filmmaking while in undergrad at Pepperdine University. I went to Pepperdine having just left a BFA theater program in NYC and not knowing what I wanted to do in my life other than the fact that I knew I wanted to be a storyteller. So I just declared a major in media production, thinking that maybe I’ll be a reporter or something. It was while I was in Pepperdine that I met my first mentor Susan Salas, who introduced me to my first fellow film lover and maker Katie Morgan, and by them I was encourage to pursue directing. While I was in Pepperdine I sucked at everything, and I didn’t know how to use a camera or how to write a script, and no one was willing to show me and there was not a lot of classes on it, but I never let that discourage me. So I went to YouTube to learn basic filmmaking and took internships at production houses to see what a script is. From that I decided to shoot my first short, which I used to apply to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts MFA program. I knew I lacked a lot of film knowledge so I wanted to learn from the best there.

The rest of what I know I learned from my time in USC. I had such great cohorts there and amazing mentors. My thesis mentor, Brenda Goodman, helped me so much on my last project and I improved greatly as an artist thanks to her. I think I learned a lot and quickly during my 3 years at USC by listening to all of what my professor has to say, and then taking their comments seriously, by never thinking I know more than them. I don’t take and use all of the comments and inputs they give but I try to listen and learn from it all. I think that’s how I grow as an artist I watch and listen to what other say and do and I then I sort through it and make it my own so that my stories and projects become better.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into filmmaking because I wanted to tell stories. I grew up in Indonesia, and I never saw stories or films that I particularly relate to. Also, most western films always has similar patterns, world views, and POVs so after a while it got really boring and I wanted to see other things. Since, the things I wanted to see didn’t exist I decided that I should make it.

The work I am most proud of currently is my thesis short film “Instant Noodle.” It tells the story of a biracial Indonesian girl, who just lost her mother. The girl wants nothing more than to forget her Indonesian roots, because it reminds her of her mother, but after a grocery run to buy Indomie, an Indonesian Instant noodle, she realizes that she needs to accept her Indonesian identity and learn to grieve her mother’s death. It is a simple mother daughter story, but I’ve never seen it told through a biracial asian lens, so I decided to write about it. The short has resonated with a lot of people from Asians, Middle Easterners, and a few even said it reminds them of their Jewish mother’s story.

In the end I would just like to make movies that I would have loved to watch as a kid, teenager or young adult. I want to tell stories that unite people, and also stories through a POV that may not be commonly represented in the mainstream media.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I would just like to tells stories from the POVs of communities that rarely gets told in the world or whose stories has been sidelined or washed by the majority society or by the western media. For example like stories about Indonesia that is not about how a white lady had a great time in Bali, but more about how life is like for the Indonesian who serves that white lady coffee every morning.

I just feel the world lacks authentic stories now days. We all just want to live in our own bubbles and believe that the world is great and everything is black and white and good always wins against evil. The thing is this is not true and I would like to show that in my story, by making films about the lives of everyday people and not about super heroes. I believe if we do not see these stories on screen that reflect reality we will grow disenchanted by reality.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I was in my Pepperdine filmmaking class, I was probably the least experienced one. I remembered people would laugh at my ideas, and one classmate even said that my films were dumb and to hedonistic ( she is super Christian, not that it is bad). The thing is I never let their comment get to me. In the end I grouped and worked with people who were not stuck up, and deem bad by Pepperdine’s filmmaking crew. The thing is in my graduating media class 14 of my peers applied to USC SCA class, and only 2 got in, including myself, and we were both not in the top filmmaking crew. Also the peers I worked with who the Pepperdine top filmmaking crew deem bad, most of them are now editing TV shows and commercials, whole the top crew are not doing anything. So the message is don’t listen to negative people. Don’t be vengeful or hateful to them but don’t listen to them. Just find your people and learn to grow together, because as an artist you cannot dwell in the negative energy of others and you should also hang out with people who will help you grow and who you can help grow.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Michelle_sastraa

Image Credits
DP: Vicky Rattanaviapong Poster design : Jessica Armelia and Monic Tan