The Government Continues To Encourage Creative Economy, Especially Indonesian Film

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto. (DOC. BETWEEN/Maria Cicilia Galuh)

JAKARTA - As one of the strategies for economic diversification, the government is pushing for an increase for the creative economy with various policy incentives. One of them is encouraging the advancement of the Indonesian film industry.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto said that the film industry has transformed into one of the ecosystems that has high added value.

"Creativity is a very good thing and I am always proud of film people because when it comes to added value, the highest added value is creativity and cinema. How to visualize ideas and ideas and become an interesting spectacle and public entertainment," said Airlangga in his statement, Saturday, October 28.

Furthermore, Airlangga added that efforts to support the world of cinema to penetrate to digital media are currently encouraging developments in society.

The initiation is also considered to have contributed to reviving the enthusiasm and pace of Indonesian cinema amid the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I remember when handling Covid, one of the sectors that was difficult to recover was film because they couldn't come to the cinema. But actresses, producers came to my office and at that time we thought some incentives including encouraging film to enter online media," he explained.

Furthermore, by paying attention to the rapid development of Indonesian cinema at this time, Airlangga expressed his appreciation and hoped that giving awards to film people could spur enthusiasm to continue producing the best works for the community.

The Indonesian Journalist Film Festival (FFWI) itself is one of the awards for the film industry which aims to appreciate and encourage Indonesian cinema to continue to take part both domestically and abroad.

Unlike other award events, in conducting assessments, FFWI separates films that are assessed from several categories, namely comedy, action, drama, and horror.

Carrying the theme Indonesia's Wide Screen Film Awakening Era, FFWI this year has selected no less than 124 films that were screened from September 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023 in theaters and digital over the Top (OTT) broadcast media.

The assessment was carried out through two stages, namely the first stage by 31 journalists and the second stage by the jury as many as 9 journalists.