The House of Representatives is scheduled to pass the heavily criticized Film Bill into law during a plenary meeting on Tuesday, despite strong opposition from the country’s film industry stakeholders.

The passage of the bill would ahead as planned because the House Commission X on Education and Culture had agreed with the government on several substantive issues in the bill during a meeting at the House in Jakarta on Monday.

“This bill, if passed into law, will mean the death of the Indonesian film industry. There are many stipulations in the bill that will hinder aspiring filmmakers expressing their creativity,” a film director, Joko Anwar, told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Monday.

“For example, Article No. 48 of the bill stipulates that only certified filmmakers are allowed to make movies. So, people like me, who do not have any official movie making certification, will not be able to make movies any more,” he added.

Joko is a graduate from Bandung Institute of Technology’s aviation engineering school.

“It also means young independent filmmakers will find it even harder to make movies because most of them do not have any filmmaker qualifications either,” he said.

Joko echoed the recent sentiments voiced by the Indonesian Press and Broadcast Society (MPPI), which deemed that the bill evoked the authoritarian style of the New Order regime.

MPPI said the bill gave too much power to the government, especially the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, to interfere in film production.

For example, Article No. 14 of the bill stipulates that movie producers have to acquire operational permits from several ministries and local administrations.

In Article No. 17, the bill stipulates that before making a movie, a production house must report its plan, title and scenario to the ministries, and production can only start a minimum of three months after the report has been submitted.

Foreign producers who make movies in Indonesia must also seek permission from the government.

However, Tourism and Culture Minister Jero Wacik said before Monday’s meeting that the ministry had no intention at all of limiting the freedom of the film industry, let alone killing it.

“The country’s movie industry has been on the rise over the last five years. We want to maintain the rise and empower it further through the bill,” he said.

“I believe that this bill, if passed into law, will boost the quality of the country’s domestic film industry. This bill was initiated by the film industry itself, and its main purpose is to protect the industry for a long time to come,” he added.

One of the stipulations that Wacik believed would improve the Indonesian film industry is the one stipulating that cinema owners must allocate a minimum 60 percent of its movie slots for local movies.

“This stipulation does not mean to interfere in the cinema owners’ business policies, but it aims to motivate local filmmakers to be more productive,” he said.

However, Joko said that the minimum 60 percent privilege for local movies at the cinema would not change anything and would have no effect at all in the context of the empowerment of local filmmakers.

“The local film industry does not need protectionism. What it needs is empowerment. So, the government should have decided to build more film schools and give out needed funds to film talent, who are lacking in terms of capital but abundant in terms of creativity,” he said. (hdt)

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