Cinema of Indonesia

The cinema of Indonesia refers to films produced domestically in Indonesia. The statutory Indonesian Film Board, or BPI, defines Indonesian films as "movies that are made by or using Indonesian resources whose Intellectual Property Right is owned either entirely or partly by Indonesian citizen or Indonesian legal entity". Cinema in Indonesia dates back to the early 1900s. Until the 1920s, most cinemas in Indonesia were created by foreign studios, mostly from Europe and the United States, whose films would then be imported to the country. Most of these films were silent documentaries and feature films from France and the United States. Many documentaries about the nature and life of Indonesia were sponsored by the Dutch East Indies government, and were usually made by Dutch or Western European studios. The first domestically produced documentaries in Indonesia were produced in 1911. However, the first domestically produced film in the Dutch East Indies was in 1926: Loetoeng Kasaroeng, a silent film and adaptation of the Sundanese legend of the same name. During 1926, there were two movie theatres, the Oriental and the Elita, in Bandung. The first movie theatre in Jakarta was the Alhamra Theatre, which opened in 1931. Indonesian cinema began dominating most movie theaters in big cities in the 1980s and started to compete in international film festivals. Around this era, young stars like Onky Alexander, Meriam Bellina, Lydia Kandou, Nike Ardilla, Paramitha Rusady, and Desy Ratnasari dominated the silver screen with films like Catatan si Boy (Boy's Diary) and Blok M. Indonesian film slowly lost its place and popularity due to the domination of Hollywood and foreign films in movie theaters throughout the 1990s. In the wake of the Indonesian financial crisis and political movements, the industry struggled to raise public interest in attending movie theaters, and most films stuck to teenage dramas, horror, and adult genres. After the Reform in the beginning of 2000, the Indonesian film industry was strengthened by a growing number of young filmmakers.