Filmic Peace Mediation Through Bugis-Makassar Local Knowledge and Participatory Practice

Abstract

Film is often recruited for peace campaigns as a carrier of explicit messages, yet this instrumental view overlooks the mediating work performed by image, sound, space, and embodied participation. This article examines Pindah Rumah, a Bugis-Makassar practice-based project developed in Tanatakko Hamlet, Maros, South Sulawesi, as a response to a situation in which residents faced difficulties relocating a traditional timber stilt house situated on land not formally owned by the household. The study asks how local knowledge is translated into filmic peace mediation and how a printed performance script is developed into an audiovisual deep script for novice local performers. A qualitative single-case design analyses a 112-page artistic archive comprising conceptual notes, scene descriptions, spatial diagrams, production photographs, rehearsal records, audiovisual documentation, research diaries, interview recordings, and reflective accounts. The findings show that Pindah Rumah critically reframes siri’ from reactive honour toward relational self-regulation through pacce/pesse, sipakatau, sipakainge’, and sipakalebbi. Filmic peace mediation emerges through the stilt house, collective labour, restrained movement, sound, humour, off-screen presence, and spectator participation. The audiovisual deep script expands printed instructions into observable arrangements of action, space, sound, cultural conduct, visual access, and performance rhythm. Its documented rehearsal functions include concrete cues, embodied recall, ensemble coordination, self-observation, and repeatability. The article contributes two related concepts, filmic peace mediation and the audiovisual deep script, integrated within one analytical framework for community filmmaking, arts-based peacebuilding, and culturally grounded performer training.