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Indonesian movies win over more local fans
Indonesian movies seem to have won greater admiration among local moviegoers in recent years
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Indonesian movies seem to have won greater admiration among local moviegoers in recent years.
Take for example Louisa Ivana Utami, a 29-year-old movie fan who said she had a bit of a “fear of missing out” if she did not go and watch some particular Indonesian movie being screened at cinemas — something that had never happened before in her life.
Louisa said she found Indonesian movies “appealing” lately, with their solid plots, educative content and touching stories, as well as cheesy yet rib-tickling jokes here and there.
“It feels like Indonesian movies are upgrading in terms of quality, content and everything [...] All the Indonesian movies I have watched recently even exceeded my expectations,” Louisa said, adding that she used to be disappointed with the presentation of Indonesian movies in the past, when females were largely exploited through shallow and sensualized horror movies.
Thus, she went to cinemas to watch mostly Hollywood movies. Today, however, she prefers watching Indonesian movies for their quality and relatability.
Meanwhile, another moviegoer Faisal Ardi said he also used to avoid watching local movies. But his preference recently changed after he watched recently released Indonesian movies that he found surprisingly interesting.
“There are some consistently good personas like actor Reza Rahadian and filmmaker Ernest Prakasa, who make me want to watch Indonesian movies over and over again,” said the 26-year-old.
Ernest’s latest work Imperfect, which stars Jessica Mila and Reza Rahadian, was the second-most watched Indonesian film last year with over 2.58 million tickets sold. It was followed by Dua Garis Biru (Two Blue Stripes) with 2.53 million tickets sold. Meanwhile, the first movie on the list was Dilan 1991, which managed to sell a whopping 5.25 million tickets.
At least 15 of the Indonesian movies released in 2019 sold over 1 million tickets, which was a significant increase from three movies in 2015 and none in 2011.
A study from Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting (SMRC) on the Indonesian film industry — carried out in September and December last year using the Stratified Multistage Random Sampling method with a 3 percent margin of error — showed the industry was on the rise currently after experiencing a collapse some years ago.
It noted that 67 percent of young moviegoers, aged 15 to 38, went to cinemas last year to watch Indonesian movies, while only 55 percent of them went to cinemas to enjoy foreign movies.
Generally, around 9.3 percent of Indonesians aged 17 and above watched Indonesian movies at theaters, while for foreign movies, the number stood at only 8.2 percent.
“This is good momentum that needs to be maintained. Industry players must henceforth produce more and more quality movies to cater to market demand,” said SMRC communication director Ade Armando while presenting the study’s result at the Djakarta Theater Ballroom in Central Jakarta on Thursday.
The SMRC study also revealed that among the popular movie genres in Indonesia were comedy, horror and action. Moreover, it found that the majority of moviegoers were dominated by people aged 40 or above.
People with higher educational levels, furthermore, showed a greater interest in watching movies than not so well educated viewers.
“Much can be improved to attract more potential viewers as fewer than 10 percent of Indonesians go to movie theaters,” Ade said, meaning only about 19 million Indonesians go to cinemas — out of a total of around 190 million citizens aged 17 and over.
