Maya Xristyanti left a movie theater with her husband Henry Hamdani and their 5-year-old son Albert, who carried a bucket of Easter eggs he managed to collect before the animated movie Kung Fu Panda 3 started.

'€œIt seems like Albert was more interested in playing around and finding the eggs than watching the movie,'€ Maya told The Jakarta Post on Friday, while carrying a couple of plastic-wrapped prizes her son won for managing to find more than 10 eggs.

Maya said she and Henry had been moviegoers since they were still dating years ago. Before finding the Cinemaxx Junior Screen in the Maxx Box Lippo Village shopping in Karawaci, Tangerang, they had been looking for such a cinema where they could share their longtime hobby with their son.

She said their previous cinema experience was more like taking care of Albert, who kept moving from one seat to another instead of watching the movie itself. However, this Friday'€™s movie session was different because their son could sit still longer as he had been tired out by playing in a playground adjacent to the cinema.

'€œIn the middle of the movie he returned to the playground for a while, but overall we could still watch the movie. We are really enjoying today'€™s experience,'€ she continued.

Lippo Group'€™s movie theater Cinemaxx launched its first Cinemaxx Junior Screen on Thursday. Claiming it as the first cinema screen ever dedicated to children in Asia, the Cinemaxx Junior Screen considers children aged 3 to 10 years to be their main target as audience members.

The kids'€™ cinema accommodates 106 people at full capacity in various types of seats: bean bag seats in the first two rows, lounge seats in the next row, standard cinema seats in the next three rows and sofa beds in the rear row.

The first movie shown at the new cinema was Kung Fu Panda 3, the sequel to two movies that enjoyed commercial success in 2008 and 2011, with a voice cast of Hollywood A-list actors that includes Jack Black, Angelina Jolie and Dustin Hoffman.

Infany Suryadji, the head of marketing at Cinemaxx, said that the Cinemaxx Junior Screen had a different setup than the standard cinema with its slightly brighter lights, lower volumes and a playground with a tube slide and a pool of balls. After purchasing tickets, children are able to play in the dedicated playground before they enter the screening room.

'€œThe gate will be opened an hour before the movie starts so they can play in the playground beforehand. Afterwards, the children might be a little tired and prefer to sit quietly in the theater,'€ she said.

Infany added that children would also be able to enter the screening room by sliding in from the playground and could go back and forth to the playground during the movie. As a promotional price, tickets cost Rp 100,000 each (US$7.70) for any kind of seat.

Rendi Aprianto, who came from Serpong, South Tangerang, with his wife and daughter, said they were happy that they could bring their 4-year-old daughter to the cinema without worrying that she would disrupt other visitors with her crying.

'€œSometimes my daughter cries when she hears a loud movie sound when we bring her to the cinema. Now, we would just bring her to the playground for a while and return when her crying stops,'€ he said.

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