Aruna the Birdwoman and Her Sophisticated Palate

News broke out two months ago that Palari Films was cooking up an adaptation of Laksmi Pamuntjak’s foodie novel, "Aruna dan Lidahnya," or "The Birdwoman’s Palate." The Jakarta Globe managed to pin down the constantly mobile Laksmi on Friday (20/07) at Aksara Kemang, the newly relaunched hipster bookstore that Laksmi co-founded in 2001, to talk about her thoughts on the film, the challenges of incorporating the story’s many layers and dealing with what she called a "dream cast." Laksmi said the idea to turn the novel into a movie came from director Edwin and actor Nicholas Saputra just a month after the book was released in November 2014.