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n official said that the Education and Culture ministry was in the middle of implementing a new project to build movie theaters for independent as well as mainstream Indonesian movies, called mass theater (bioskop rakyat).

'It's still on a trial run and needs input from all parties,' said deputy Education and Culture minister for cultural affairs Wiendu Nuryanti, at the seventh LA Lights Indie Movie at the Yogyakarta
National Museum on Saturday.

These theater buildings will be built in public locations in West Sumatera's capital Padang and two cities in Central Java, Semarang and Purbalingga.

'If the results are good, bioskop rakyat will be adopted all over Indonesia,' said Wiendu.

'This is a breakthrough considering the limited number of movie theaters and when the film industry is dominated by Hollywood productions,' she added.

Putut Wijanarko, the producer of the film 'Ainun-Habibie', said that one of the problems of the national film industry is the limited number of movie theaters.

'There are many productions, many young and gifted film makers. If there aren't any places to screen them, then their films can only be enjoyed by themselves,' he said.

Putut said it is time for the government to seriously build new theaters for Indonesian films, because without space the potential, no matter how great, will not develop.(asw/dic)