Jakarta International Film Festival – or as we have been lovingly referred to all these years as JiFFest, is coming on December 9-18. But it is never too early to anticipate a film festival this big, especially with an impressive string of fringe events and a jaw-dropping line-up of high profile international guests to sizzle the festivities. Plus, they're introducing a new membership system this year, so we'd better gear ourselves up before showing up at the venues. So we'll kick off the buzz a little early, and before dishing out the films screened in our next issue, here's a preview of what will be going on on the side.

The events...

European Union Film Festival
A film festival within a festival. Continuing a tradition they started last year, JiFFest collaborates with embassies of countries under the European Union, screening films from 18 different European countries.

Script Development Workshop Competition
One of the most interesting events in this year's JiFFest. You have dusty old script ideas at the bottom of your drawer, you come to the workshop to have one developed into a full script, you get to present your script in front of potential investors, and you stand a chance to have it produced. The workshop is divided into four categories: script development for short film, feature film, short-form documentary and long-form documentary – and boasts a number of world-class filmmakers participating as speakers in each category.

The workshop on feature film will have no less than Emmy winner David Howard (whose credits include the wildly popular TV series Rugrats, and author of the popular book The Tools to Screenwriting) acting as speaker. The short film workshop will feature Marina Blok and Frank Pijnburg, Heads of Programming and Acquisition from Netherland's NPS. Speaking in the documentary section will be Curtis Levy, a producer-director-cinematographer with several Australian Film Institute awards on his shelf; Graeme Isaacs, a Sundance 2005 nominee in the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary for his film Dhakiyarr vs. The King; and Leonard Retel Helmrich, a Sundance 2005 winner for his documentary The Shape of the Moon.

Alas, the workshop is not open for public, as only 10 professional writers and 20 observers for each category will be selected to participate. Plus, the registration has closed on October 15, but it's still nice to know that all these big names are coming to town, and that some lucky folks will have their dreams realized at the end of the year, as one participant in each category will be awarded cash prize to have their scripts produced.