Indonesian cinema is booming, local films beating the admission records last year and in progress for even more in -depth growth in 2025, but the lack of screens in the country created a bottle of distribution strangulation, said speakers on a Cannes walking panel.
Linda Gozali, who runs the recently launched Jaff market, and Angga Dwimas Sasongko, founder and CEO of the Visinema group based in Jakarta, described the current Indonesian theatrical market trends, one of the few in the world that is currently developing.
In addition, Denis Vaslin, CEO of Volya Films, based in Rotterdam, and the chief of Hubert Bals, Tamara Tatishvili, spoke of the potential for co -production with the fast growing market.
Gozali explained that Indonesia currently has 468 cinemas with 2,293 screens for a population of around 280 million inhabitants. This corresponds to an audience of 117,750 people per screen, compared to around 15,000 people per screen in China and South Korea and 9,000 in the United States, which makes Indonesia considerably undervalued.
“I think that an advantage of the Indonesian market is that the price of tickets (around $ 2.50) makes cinema one of the cheapest forms of entertainment. So, from an investment point of view, we can see that there is a lot of space to develop,” said Angga, whose recent version, the animated version, animated Giantwas released during the Eid holidays and is currently close to 10 million admissions.
In comparison, Disney Frozen 2 is the largest foreign animation of all time published in Indonesia with 4.2 million admissions.
“Our GDP is still slightly less than $ 5,000 and when we adopt, we can expect the price of the purchase and the price of the tickets to increase, and the crude box office will increase considerably,” added Angga. “If Giant If the same number of admission to North America would have brought in $ 200 million. We are not there yet but we can see the growth potential. »»
While the market was flooded with horror, Angga explained how Visinema took a bet to do GiantA family film: “I told the cinemas that if they reserve GiantFamilies will come because in recent years they have not had the chance to come to the cinema. And we turned out to be just because during the Eid holidays, the market as a whole reached 14 million admissions. »»
However, the lack of screens creates a bottleneck for local and foreign films. Indonesian producers generally deal directly with the three main exhibitors in the country during the publication of a film, because the country does not have many independent distributors, but the three cinema chains also have their own distribution companies and film slates. Last year, the market had a backwards of hundreds of unpublished films.
“If you are binding with a main studios of Indonesia, you have a better chance of obtaining a distribution, but keep in mind that 300 to 400 other films are also in competition for screens,” said Gozali.
Angga has added: “The problem is that there is a large lag between the limited number of screens and the growing number of productions. This year, local films have a market share of 78%, so exhibitors automatically give more slots to Indonesian films.”
The panel also talked about the potential for co -production with Indonesia. Although many films with Arthoues and Festivals have been set up in co -productions with Indonesia, Angga said that there was also a collaboration potential on commercial films, in particular animation: “We need international partners because first, the manufacture of animation is not cheap, it is Twice the budget for an action film, so we need strategic partners The foreigner, and also to better understand how to improve the quality of our product. ”
Vaslin spoke of his co -producing experiences Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya This city is a battlefieldA historic drama taking place during the Dutch colonial period, which was the closing film of the Rotterdam International Film Festival. The film, which brought together its funding during the pandemic, also had co -producers from Singapore, the Philippines, Norway and Cambodia.
“We asked them what you need us because you are already in a complex situation on several levels, but they needed three Dutch players. We also made VFX and collected the funding of Hubert Bals,” said Vaslin.
Periscoop Film, founded by San Fu Maltha and Submarine, released the film in the Netherlands almost at the same time when he was released in Indonesia. Vaslin joked by saying that the Netherlands should now be colonized by Indonesia while the film has taken 126,000 admissions on its internal market, against 10,000 admissions to the Netherlands, due to the very different size of their respective populations.
Since the film, the Netherlands and Indonesia have signed an official co-production treaty, and an increasing number of Dutch projects plan to shoot in Indonesia.
Tatishvili explained how the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) also supported other Indonesian productions, especially to come from Kamila andini Four Seasons in JavaBut also suggested that the collaboration of the Netherlands-Indonesia could go beyond the Treaty and the HBF to explore the development of talents and infrastructure.
“I would be very interested in exploring more what is happening in Indonesia at the level of stakeholders and at the level of politics, to support talents and create new forms of financial support,” said Tatishvili. “There is so much happening in Indonesia, I do not think that the simple request for financing is sufficient. We could consider launching joint programs to give Indonesia access to international producers and expertise.”
Jaff Market, who welcomed the panel, is organizing a series of activities in Cannes. Reza Rahadian project Known is screening for the “HAF GOES TO CANNES” program in walking. In addition, three Indonesian projects – Locust of independent publisher Kosmik, Bryan Valeza Batavia bandits And Re: On the comics’ Jitu (joint intelligence and tactical unit) – were presented in the IP adaptation window of Spotlight Asia. Jaff Market also organized a series of networking events.
The second edition of Jaff Market will take place on November 29 on December 1 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, alongside the Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF), which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
