Indonesian cinema is booming, with local films breaking admissions records last year and on course for even further growth in 2025, but the lack of screens in the country has created a distribution bottleneck, said speakers on a Cannes Marche panel.
Linda Gozali, who heads the recently launched JAFF Market, and Angga Dwimas Sasongko, founder and CEO of Jakarta-based Visinema Group, outlined current trends in the Indonesian theatrical market, one of the few in the world that is currently growing.
In addition, Denis Vaslin, CEO of Rotterdam-based Volya Films, and Hubert Bals Fund head Tamara Tatishvili, talked about 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. That works out 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 U.S, making Indonesia significantly under-screened.
“I think one advantage of the Indonesian market is that the price point of tickets (around $2.50) makes cinema one of the cheapest form of entertainment. So from an investment point of view, we can see there’s a lot of room to grow,” said Angga, whose recent release, animated feature Jumbo, was released over the Eid holidays and is currently close to 10 million admissions.
In comparison, Disney’s Frozen 2 is the biggest foreign animation of all time released in Indonesia with 4.2 million admissions.
“Our GDP is still slightly below $5,000 and when we pass that we can expect buying power and ticket prices to increase, and gross box office will significantly grow,” Angga added. “If Jumbo had the same number of admissions in North America, it would have grossed $200M. We’re not there yet but we can see the potential for growth.”
While the market has been flooded with horror, Angga explained how Visinema took a gamble on making Jumbo, a family film: “I told cinemas that if they book Jumbo, families will come, because in recent years they didn’t have a chance to come to the cinema. And we proved to be right because during the Eid holidays the market as a whole reached 14 million admissions.”
However, the lack of screens is creating a bottleneck for both local and foreign movies. Indonesian producers usually deal directly with the country’s three major exhibitors when releasing a movie, as the country does not have many independent distributors, but all three cinema chains also have their own distribution companies and slates of movies. Last year, the market had a backlog of hundreds of unreleased films.
“If you tie up with one Indonesia’s major studios, you have a better chance of getting distribution, but bear in mind, that 300 to 400 other movies are also competing for screens,” said Gozali.
Angga added: “The problem is there’s a big mismatch between the limited number of screens and growing numbers of productions. This year, local movies have a market share of 78%, so exhibitors automatically give more slots to the Indonesian films.”
The panel also talked about the potential for co-production with Indonesia. While many arthouse and festival-friendly films have been set up as co-productions with Indonesia, Angga said there’s also potential for collaboration on commercial movies, especially animation: “We need international partners because firstly, making animation is not cheap, it’s twice the budget of an action movie, so we need strategic partners to bring the IP overseas, and also get more insights into how to improve the quality of our product.”
Vaslin talked about his experiences co-producing Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya’s This City Is A Battlefield, a historical drama set during the Dutch colonial period, which was the closing film of this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film, which pieced together its financing during the pandemic, also had co-producers from Singapore, Philippines, Norway and Cambodia.
“We asked them what do you need from us because you’re already in a complex situation on many levels, but they needed three Dutch actors. We also did some VFX and raised the Hubert Bals funding,” Vaslin explained.
Periscoop Film, founded by San Fu Maltha and Submarine, released the film in the Netherlands around the same time it was released in Indonesia. Vaslin joked that the Netherlands should be now colonized by Indonesia as the film took 126,000 admissions in its home market, compared to 10,000 admissions in the Netherlands, due to the vastly differing size of their respective populations.
Since the film was made, Netherlands and Indonesia have signed an official co-production treaty, and a growing number of Dutch projects are planning to shoot in Indonesia.
Tatishvili talked about how Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) has also supported other Indonesian productions, including Kamila Andini’s upcoming Four Seasons In Java, but also suggested that Netherlands-Indonesia collaboration could go beyond the treaty and HBF to explore talent development and infrastructure.
“I’d be very interested to explore more of what’s happening in Indonesia on a stakeholder level, and on a policy level, for supporting talent and creating new forms of financial support,” said Tatishvili. “There’s so much happening in Indonesia, I don’t think just applying for funding is enough. We could look at launching joint programs to give Indonesia access to international producers and expertise.”
JAFF Market, which hosted the panel, is holding a series of activities at Cannes. Reza Rahadian’s project Pangku is screening in the ‘HAF Goes to Cannes’ program in the Marche. In addition, three Indonesian projects – Locust from indie publisher Kosmik, Bryan Valeza’s Bandits Of Batavia and re:ON Comics’ JITU (Joint Intelligence And Tactical Unit) – were featured in Spotlight Asia’s IP Adaptation showcase. JAFF Market also held a series of networking events.
The second edition of JAFF Market is taking place November 29 to December 1 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, alongside Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF), which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
