Create A Safe Space For Film Workers, BPI Prepares Ethics Council

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Indonesian Film Agency (BPI) Gunawan Paggaru said his party would form an Ethics Council, including a code of ethics, one of which aims to create a safe space for film workers.

"One of the mandates of the congress participants in the BPI's AD/ART mandates that the management of my period must form an Ethics Council. So in my management period there will be an Ethics Council that will take care of things like that (sexual harassment) because that is also an ethical issue and morals," said Gunawan as quoted by ANTARA, Friday, April 22.

For information, the BPI Congress held in March has appointed Gunawan Paggaru as General Chair of BPI for the period 2022 to 2026. The Congress also appointed members of the Supervisory Board elected for the same period, including Agung Sentausa, Putut Widjanarko, Derry Drajat, Gerzon R. Ayawaila, and Alex Sihar .

Gunawan said that his party is currently preparing the formation of the Ethics Council and will develop a code of ethics with all stakeholders which will be determined by the management and the BPI Supervisory Board.

The code of ethics, he continued, will be used as a guideline to decide ethical violations that occur between film professional associations.

Gunawan said that actually several associations already have a code of ethics, but the code of ethics can only serve internal problems of each association.

On the other hand, film workers always work cross-association so that the presence of a code of ethics is said to be important in the BPI scale which houses around 62 film associations.

"For example, the Association of Film and Television Employees (KFT), he can only solve internal problems. But what if there is a violation of ethics regarding his relationship with players (actors) who have their own associations. Now, this becomes an obstacle if there is a violation of ethics between associations," he said.

Regarding other problems with film workers, he said that his party was also encouraging the government to issue ministerial regulations, especially from the Minister of Manpower, which could regulate industrial relations in the film sector, including setting working hours to social security.

Through a ministerial regulation, Gunawan said the relationship between employers and job seekers in the Indonesian film industry ecosystem could be created in a healthier way.

"Now we are actively pushing how the working hours are not really 24 hours. Even though in reality film work sometimes inevitably has to work 24 hours, but it must be accumulated in one week so that there is still time to rest. That's what try to push it," he said.