Movie murmurs

Paper Edition | Page: 12

Internet has led to many websites and blogs about films

Of all the local websites and blogs, here are four websites aside from filmindonesia.or.id (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 8, 2012) that talk about cinema.

Rumah Film Indonesia (new.rumahfilm.org)

With its well known critics and certified film academics, Rumah Film Indonesia has been a destination for the more refined film buffs since it was launched in August 2007.

The six cofounders were disappointed to see Indonesian films did not receive a proper welcome. Because all of them are writers, they intended to create a breakthrough: a website as a platform for good and determined literature.

“Based on my experiences in Japan, I think that we need more published studies and articles [on movies],” said Krisnadi Yuliawan, who co-founded the website and serves as chief editor.

The website’s main target is to participate in developing the film industry. Recently they jointly published a book with Tifa foundation titled Menjegal Film Indonesia (Tackling Indonesia’s Films), a research about the economy and politics of the film industry in Indonesia.

Krisnadi said Rumah Film believes that movies aren’t just about entertainment, industry, or a tool of expression. He said that studying films is the same as studying about what is being experienced by the nation.

Cinema Poetica (cinemapoetica.com)

Adrian Jonathan Pasaribu and Makbul Mubarak are still passionate about films after Kinoki, an alternative cinema and coffee shop where they worked in Yogyakarta, had closed.

Adrian then started to design postcards for fun, using posters of movies and descriptions on the other side. He distributed them to several cafes in Yogyakarta using the name Cinema Poetica, which is a word play for Cinema Politica, an exhibition of documentaries in Canada.

The name popped up as the website address when Makbul gave an idea to create a website to reach more people and providing critical articles to talk movies discursively, then they launched it on October 14, 2010.

“We don’t want to stop with seeing movies only as movies, because movies are connected with thoughts, histories and philosophies,” said Adrian.

The duo agreed that cinemapoetica.com prefer to talk about general things using social, cultural and political perspectives that construct each movie rather than assess them as good or bad, and thus, there are no ratings on its reviews.

Filmoo (filmoo.com)

Started from disappointment after watching a foreign movie, four movie-goers thought that there should be a website that provides reviews on local and foreign movies similar to imdb.com, rottentomatoes.com, and flixster.com.

That was the time when they decided to establish filmoo.com then launched it in July 2010.

“[We are aiming] to become the leading film and entertainment portal and also to be the benchmark of film reviews as guidance before watching movies,” said Kevin Osmond, one of the co-founders who designed and developed the website.

Kevin said that filmoo.com tries to present an interesting and intuitive design interface to put forward comfort and content quality for its readers. The website won Best Social Network category Bubu Awards 2011. It is also one of the finalists of SparxUp Awards 2010.

Bicara Film

If other websites about films usually provide articles from experts, bicarafilm.com provides public discussion rooms where common people that watch films without any pretension can share their thoughts.

“It started from nerves and chitchats that there were no websites talking about films from a general perspective, whereas it would be interesting if we know the perception of common people,” said Iman Brotoseno, who co-founded the website with Antyo Rentjoko.

Iman said that he and Antyo had help from Didi Nurgrahadi of salingsilang.com, who facilitate them with the web hosting. The website that launched in 2008 is listed as one of the websites in the salingsilang.com network.

According to Iman, bicarafilm.com is the only website of movies based on community. Users can write and discuss films in discussion rooms that they created. In other words, adds Iman, the content in the website is varied with a lot of opinion and has a wider audience.