Intermittent Industries: Film Production in Indonesia over Nine Decades

Abstract

This chapter surveys film production in two eras, the colonial period and the period of independence. Early sections primarily outline the pioneering role of Chinese Indonesians as producer/directors of the majority of the films made in the colonial period, and also survey the period of the Japanese occupation (1942–45), when film production was controlled by the Japanese. Later sections explore the main phases of production since the achievement of independence in late 1949, highlighting the most popular Indonesian film genres, and providing profiles of the most innovative filmmakers to emerge in the 1950s, the 1970s and the new millennium, periods in which new generations of talent emerged. It also outlines the economics of the industry, including competition between locally produced films and product from Hollywood, Hong Kong and India..