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Jakarta Post

Clarification from Film Indonesia

We are writing this letter in response to one of your articles entitled “A Passion for Indonesian Movies” (The Jakarta Post, Jan

The Jakarta Post
Wed, January 30, 2013

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Clarification from Film Indonesia

W

e are writing this letter in response to one of your articles entitled “A Passion for Indonesian Movies” (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 20). This article cited the number of viewers of Indonesian films based on our website, Film Indonesia (filmindonesia.or.id).

We would like to point out that there are some mistakes in this citation, namely:

1. “Along with Habibie & Ainun and The Raid, a romantic tale about mountain climbers, 5 cm, successfully surpassed the rarely achieved total of 1 million viewers last year, according to filmindonesia.or.id.”

The total number of viewers for the films mentioned (Habibie & Ainun, The Raid, and 5 cm) has, in fact, reached over 1 million. However, these figures were not achieved during the 2012 period alone. Habibie & Ainun was released on Dec. 20, 2012 and is still being screened in theaters today. The same situation occurred with 5 cm (released Dec. 12, 2012 and is still being screened). As we stated clearly on the website, the figures stated in Film Indonesia’s Data Penonton or Audience Data page are based on the release year of the films, not the distribution period.

Therefore, your article contains misleading information and we would like you to revise it. The correct information would be: “Habibie & Ainun and 5 cm successfully surpassed the rarely achieved total of 1 million viewers during their ongoing public theater screening period of 2012-2013, according to filmindonesia.or.id.”

2. “The total number of local viewers climbed to 10.5 million, the first surge after two years.” This sentence is very unclear and contains mistaken data. First of all, it should clearly state what year/period the total number of viewers refers to. Second, if the total number of viewers stated in the sentence refers to the year 2012, the number is wrong. Third, it did not state the source of the information. So, let us assume that the number was taken from the Film Indonesia website with correlation to the previous sentence in the article. Based on this assumption, the Post has made a significant mistake.

Film Indonesia only displays the top 10 films with the highest number of viewers. This is clearly stated in the title of every box for every audience data figure for each year. The statement reads: “10 Film Indonesia peringkat teratas dalam perolehan jumlah penonton pada tahun 2012 berdasarkan tahun edar film” or “10 Indonesian films with the highest number of viewers in 2012 based on the films’ year of release.”

If the writer made a total summation of only the 10 highest audience numbers in 2012, the total is in fact 10.5 million. However, this total only covers 10 titles that were released in 2012, when 83 titles were actually released in 2012.

Our main goal in publishing audience data figures on our website, Film Indonesia, is to help develop the film industry. We try to collect this data independently and, therefore, very carefully. Based on this data, many parties can immediately analyze how Indonesian films are progressing in their own region. We welcome anyone who is interested to build any kind of analysis based on this data, but it has to be done accurately or it will benefit no one.

Lintang Gitomartoyo

Manager of Film Indonesia
Jakarta

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