From a contracted market to an expanding horizon: an analysis of Indonesia’s film production chain and accessibility

ABSTRACT

Indonesia’s film industry presents the case of shifting power dynamics in its production chain; throughout its production, distribution, and exhibition sectors. For most of the decades the industry experienced a contracted market, only expanding recently in the 2010s. In order to explain this shifting market and power dynamics, the paper examines the impacts of internal and external pressures during and after the New Order Government (1966–1998). This framework bridges the gap in connecting past structural problems of Indonesia’s film industry with its current situation. The paper also focuses on Indonesia’s film distribution sector, which has withdrawn from its ideal function beyond recognition, but its significance remains intact. The results show that restrictive internal pressures contracted the market, whereas constructive internal pressures laid structural foundations for optimizing external pressures of liberalization and digitalization to expand the market. Meanwhile, film distribution plays an important role in developing the industry by increasing financial and logistical accessibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Indonesia
• film production chain
• market contraction
• market expansion
• film policy

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Prof. Tomohiro Machikita, PhD for the patient guidance, input and advice to develop this paper. The author would also like to thank Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for funding the research of this paper. Moreover, the author thanks the editors of International Journal of Cultural Policy, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful efforts and inputs to the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The New Order Government started from 1966 to 1998.

2. This was a result of trade pressures from America that would boycott Indonesian textile if Indonesia does not open its borders for American films (Imanda 2014; Imanjaya 2022).

3. In general, all forms of domestic content, be it TV programs or films, have a hard time gaining TV spots with competition from foreign content (Sen and Hill 2007).

4. This statement (and its derivations) was made by various Indonesian filmmakers in public settings, such as seminars and podcasts.

5. There is an investment pitching forum and workshop for short and featured films called AKATARA, but the program focuses more on local business partners that could benefit with more international collaboration.

6. Since 87 percent of broadband users and 46 percent of mobile internet users rely on state-owned internet providers (under Telkom Group) (World Bank 2021), a significant portion of the market was deprived from Netflix access between 2005–2020.

7. One example is Ravana Films from Yogyakarta that went viral because of their short movie Tilik (The Visit, Wahyu Agung Prasetyo, 2018). Their YouTube channel also acts as a portfolio and from there they were contracted to produce web-series.

8. As per data at the time of the writing of this paper, the daily pricing scheme is no longer available. Notes on Vidio’s daily pricing scheme are available on Kompas.com (2022).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Notes on contributors

Putri Widya Utami

Putri Widya Utami is a PhD student in Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (ASAFAS), studying under the Department of Southeast Asia. Her research revolve around Indonesia, political economy, and the cultural creative industries.