Raditya Dika bares his soul, sharing his personal take on Ramadhan

Writer and filmmaker Raditya Dika has launched a new video series on Youtube titled "Surat untuk Ramadhan" (Letters for Ramadhan) as a personal project during the fasting month.

But be warned, it's not necessarily in the comedy genre like Raditya's most famous work, Malam Minggu Miko (Miko's Saturday Night), which is both a movie and a Youtube video series.

"The videos are my personal letters. I made them without any attempt to be humorous. Just me being truthful," Raditya told the Jakarta Post on Thursday.

He said that the videos talked about his thoughts, feelings and experiences relating to Ramadhan, including how the month led him to reunite with old friends and reminded him of a road where he used to play with firecrackers during his childhood.

The first video, which takes an essay-like form, was uploaded on Wednesday and is titled Apa Kabar? (How are you?). In it, he welcomes and discusses the arrival Ramadhan. On Thursday, it already had 36,138 views.

Raditya said that he planned to upload three videos a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and that he had finished filming the next two videos of the series.

He also hoped to inspire more people to follow his move.

"With these videos, I would like to inspire people to create their own version of “Letters for Ramadhan”; their own personal takes on it," he said.

Even though Raditya said that he had not yet planned all of the videos that he would create, he was sure about the theme for one of the final videos, at the end of the fasting month.

"I want to make one about the loneliness of Jakarta when all of the people leave the city for their hometowns, as I myself don't go to my hometown," he explained. (fsu/dmr)