24 Facts About Joko Anwar

Joko Anwar was born on 3 January 1976 and is an Indonesian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor.

Joko Anwar then made his feature film directorial debut with the romantic comedy Joni's Promise in 2005, gaining a Best Director nomination at the 2005 Citra Award.

Joko Anwar has since directed a wide range of genres: the noir thriller Dead Time: Kala, psychological thriller The Forbidden Door, supernatural horror Satan's Slaves and its sequel Satan's Slaves 2: Communion, and live-action superhero Gundala.

Joko Anwar has won 3 Citra Awards out of 13 nominations for directing and screenwriting.

Joko Anwar won the Best Director Awards twice: in 2015 for the urban drama A Copy of My Mind and in 2020 for the folk horror Impetigore as well as the Best Screenplay Award in 2008 for co-writing Mouly Surya's Fiksi.

Joko Anwar has been nominated for a total of 7 Maya Awards, winning Best Director for Satan's Slaves in 2017.

Joko Anwar was born in Medan, North Sumatra where he grew up watching kung fu and horror films.

Joko Anwar went to the highschool of SMA Negeri 1 Medan, a public school, and spent a year in the United States as an exchange student at the Wheeling Park High School in West Virginia.

Dinata and Joko Anwar won praise for their screenplay, receiving a Citra Award nomination for Best Screenplay.

In 2005, Joko Anwar made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy Joni's Promise with a star-studded cast that includes Nicholas Saputra, Mariana Renata, Rachel Maryam, Surya Saputra, and dozens of celebrity cameos, including Nia Dinata, based on a story he first wrote in 1998.

In 2007, Joko Anwar wrote and directed Dead Time: Kala, Indonesia's first film noir feature film.

In 2008, Joko Anwar co-wrote the screenplay for psychological thriller fiksi.

Joko Anwar explored the psychological thriller genre in his next film, The Forbidden Door, which was released in 2009.

TIME magazine film critic Richard Corliss wrote that the film could be "Joko Anwar's calling card for international employment, if only Hollywood moguls wanted something out of their own narrow range" and that it is "an example of what movies could be but rarely dare to try".

Joko Anwar cast rising star Rio Dewanto in the lead role as a man who must rescue his family from a killer who is hunting them.

In 2015, Joko Anwar released his fifth feature film the urban drama A Copy of My Mind with Chicco Jerikho and Tara Basro in the lead roles.

At the 2015 Citra Award, the film was nominated for 7 awards, including Best Film with Joko Anwar winning Best Director for the first time and Basro winning Best Actress in addition to another win for sound mixing.

Joko Anwar wrote the screenplay for the film and received another Citra Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

In October 2019, Joko Anwar released the folk horror Impetigore as his eighth feature film, becoming a critical and commercial success.

At the 2020 Citra Award, Joko Anwar won his second Citra Award for Best Director as well as a nomination in the Best Original Screenplay category.

Joko Anwar received another nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for writing Kimo Stamboel's remake of Indonesian horror classic The Queen of Black Magic.

Shortly after the release of Gundala, Joko Anwar was announced as the executive producer to oversee the production of several films included in the planned Volume 1 of Bumilangit Cinematic Universe superhero franchise.

Joko Anwar ended up gaining over 13 thousand followers and fulfilled the promise, causing minor controversies.

Joko Anwar has worked with several actors and actresses in multiple films, most notably is Arswendy Bening Swara who appeared in six films and Tara Basro who appeared in five of his films as lead consecutively between A Copy of My Mind in 2015 and Satan's Slaves 2: Communion in 2022.