Paul Tazewell, the Oscar-winning costume designer behind “Wicked,” has joined the creative team of “Rose Pandanwangi,” an Indonesia-Philippines co-production about celebrated seriosa singer Rose Pandanwangi, the filmmakers revealed to Variety.
The project, directed by Razka Robby Ertanto (“Yohanna”) and produced by Chelsea Islan, Ertanto and Kristine de Leon through production company Summerland, was selected for the JAFF Future Project at this year’s JAFF Market in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Tazewell’s involvement marks a significant coup for the biographical drama, bringing his award-winning expertise to a story that spans post-war Indonesia and the Netherlands. The designer won the Academy Award for best costume design for his work on “Wicked.”
Set in post-war Indonesia, “Rose Pandanwangi” follows the eponymous seriosa singer whose life mirrored the turbulent birth of a nation. Born in wartime Makassar with a voice powerful enough to move soldiers to tears, Rose navigated shifting empires, identities and expectations. After years of exile in Rotterdam, she returned to Jakarta determined to pursue her dream, rising from factory worker to national icon while balancing motherhood and ambition.
The film chronicles Rose’s career as it flourished even as her marriage quietly unraveled, the gap between domestic life and artistic calling widening beyond repair. In Jakarta’s postwar art circles, she found kinship with painter Sudjojono, whose fierce devotion to truth and freedom reignited her own. When political darkness descended and Sudjojono vanished during the anti-communist purge, Rose faced a world where voices like hers were forced into silence.
For Ertanto, the project represents a deeply personal artistic mission. “Her voice pierced through time, but her story was left behind in history,” the director says. Seriosa music, Indonesia’s unique adaptation of the Western art song, profoundly shaped his artistic identity.
Brought to the archipelago by the Dutch through German Lieder as early as the 16th century, seriosa evolved into a refined and expressive form that fused Western vocal techniques with Indonesian languages, values and nationalistic themes. In the 1940s, Rose Pandanwangi emerged as a leading figure in the genre, embodying technical excellence as well as deep cultural pride and resilience.
Ertanto’s journey toward the film began with a visit to an exhibition of paintings by Sudjojono, a pioneer of Indonesian modern art. Known for his evocative portrayals of women, the painter’s works drew Ertanto in, but it was the quiet presence of Sudjojono’s wife, Rose Pandanwangi, who appeared again and again on his canvases, that sparked the director’s interest.
“In her gaze, I sensed a story waiting to be told,” Ertanto says. “That was the moment I knew I had to make this film.”
Producer de Leon (“Agapito”), who met Ertanto at Cannes, was immediately drawn to his passion and precision. “He is a meticulous director with a deep love for Southeast Asian history and a genuine commitment to telling women’s stories with nuance and care,” de Leon says.
As a Filipina producer and mother, de Leon felt a profound connection not only to the story but also to Rose herself as a woman, artist and mother navigating the balance between creative ambition and personal responsibility.
“‘Rose Pandanwangi’ is more than a biopic of an iconic Indonesian seriosa singer; it is an intimate and layered portrait of a woman who refused to be silenced by war, patriarchy, displacement or politics,” de Leon says. The film follows Rose across continents and decades, from Japanese-occupied Indonesia to post-war Europe to her eventual return home where she became a national icon.
The project is currently in development. JAFF Future Project functions as both a development platform and co-production hub, designed to advance independent works toward completion and distribution. The initiative runs Nov. 29-Dec. 1 at the Jogja Expo Center in Yogyakarta as part of the broader 20th-anniversary celebration of the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival.