The coronavirus pandemic has existed for a long time and it brought a lot of burden to several industries, including Indonesia’s film industry. The pandemic hugely affected the network of cinema who used to be the primary place to watch movies. On 23 March 2020, the local government of DKI Jakarta deactivated one of the biggest cinema companies in Indonesia, Cinema XXI, to support the semi-quarantine measures (Ardanareswari, 2020). At first, only two weeks of deactivation was planned. However, seeing that the situation has not been better, the deactivation is changed to an indefinite amount of time. The local government of DKI Jakarta cancelled the permit to open cinemas numerous times to prevent a more aggressive spread of the virus. In effect, the premier and promotion for several domestic movies are postponed. Several production processes are also halted for an indefinite time.
Joko Anwar, one of the filmmakers in Indonesia, said that the national film industry’s loss amounts to at least 500 billion in the last three months of cinema deactivation (Sari, 2020). He said that around 30 movies are forced to stop its production process because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, in 2019, the Indonesia film industry gained 2 trillion in revenue. So, we can easily imagine the amount of loss of revenue in these five months of cinema inactivity on top of the cost of rent and cinema maintenance. No wonder that this dims the hope of filmmakers and movie aficionados to get revenue.
This is a shame considering the fact that the cinema industry is growing on a rapid pace before the pandemic came. Producer Chand Parwez analyzed that 2020 is supposed to be the peak of the national film industry success (Saraswati, 2020). This statement is backed up with the fact that there are a high rise of cinema go-ers in the last few years. In 2016, there were 37,2 million customers; in 2017 there were 42,7 customers; in 2018 there were 48,6 million customers; and finally in 2019 there were 53 million customers (Anisa, 2020). Though in 2020 the expected customer is 60 million, in reality only 20% showed up because of the provision to stay at home and the deactivation of cinemas.
Although the cinema industry has endured a massive loss in revenue, the people behind the film industry are still trying to find an alternative way out. They feel like it’s not normal to just sit back and wait for the pandemic to finish if it’s still uncertain when the pandemic is going to be over. In this case, there needs to be a strategic plan to resolve the effect of the pandemic. For example, by moving the film premier online. The existence of streaming or video on demand is believed to be the right solution to ride the wave of the stay-at-home measures. The Over The Top (OTT) companies that provide those services are one of the sectors that gain massive revenues during the quarantine period. One of them is Netflix.
In the first quarter of 2020, Netflix got 15,77 new subscribers which brought in a USD 709 million profit and a USD 5.8 billion revenue. This number doubles the former expectation of only gaining 7 million new subscribers. Then, in the second quarter, Netflix got a profit of 720 million USD and a revenue of 6,1 billion USD. Now, Netflix claims to have 182,9 million customers globally (Asih, 2020). Aside from that, a similar streaming platform from Amerika, Disney+ which was founded in November 2019, also got 50 million new subscribers in the span of five month when it took Netflix 7 years to get the same amount of customers.
Covid-19 which have become a disaster for a lot of sectors is like a pot of gold for over the top companies like Netflix, Iflix, Disney+, HBO Max, and other streaming platforms. Aside from the OTT companies, there is also GoPlay, a product owned by a domestic company and is hoped to be the competitor to foreign-owned OTT companies. The pandemic can be the moment for national filmmakers to compete with foreign-owned content. However, what is still in question in Indonesia is the health protocol of film production. Until now, the government hasn’t resolved this problem. With the new normal protocol implemented, the filmmakers should’ve been able to start shooting films right now.
Though several production houses have started their activities already, the Indonesia Film Company Group (PPFI) still urges the Ministry of Health to ratify the health protocol for the film sector (Anggraini, 2020) because a health protocol is the key to help a film industry that is in the brink of its death. This is the most effective way to prevent a long term negative effect on the film industry that could lead to total inactivity. The people behind the film industry should not only urge the government to implement a health protocol but they should also try to increase the value of their content. Us as the citizen should also have a high awareness to support domestic-owned products. All stakeholders, which includes the government, the film industry, and the society are hoped to go hand in hand in reviving the paralyzed economy.
Bibliography:
Anggraini, P. (2020, Juni 16). Film Indonesia Diperkirakan Rugi Ratusan Miliar Imbas Pandemi Corona. DetikHot. Diakses dari https://m.detik.com/hot/movie/d-5055735/film-indonesia-diperkirakan-rugi-ratusan-miliar-imbas-pandemi-corona pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Anisa, D.F. (2019, April 2). Merayakan dan Menjaga Masa Keemasan Film Nasional. BeritaSatu. Diakses dari https://www.beritasatu.com/elvira-anna-siahaan/hiburan/546426/merayakan-dan-menjaga-masa-keemasan-film-nasional pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Ardanareswari, I. (2020, April 22). Bagaimana Industri Film Bertahan di Tengah Flu Spanyol & COVID-19. Tirto.id. Diakses dari https://tirto.id/bagaimana-industri-film-bertahan-di-tengah-flu-spanyol-covid-19-eNeF pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Asih, D.N. (2020, Juli 2). Bioskop Tutup, Streaming Film akan Tumbuh Kala Pandemi. CNN Indonesia. Diakses dari https://m.cnnindonesia.com/teknologi/20200702074618-185-519838/bioskop-tutup-streaming-film-akan-tumbuh-kala-pandemi pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Saraswati, D.P. (2020, Juni 21). 2020 Semestinya Titik Kebangkitan Film Indonesia. DetikHot. Diakses dari https://m.detik.com/hot/movie/d-5062519/2020-semestinya-titik-kebangkitan-film-indonesia pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Sari, R.P. (2020, Mei 31). Joko Anwar Angkat Bicara Nasib Perfilman di Tengah Pandemi Corona. Kompas.com. Diakses dari https://www.kompas.com/hype/read/2020/05/31/105557166/joko-anwar-angkat-bicara-nasib-perfilman-di-tengah-pandemi-corona pada tanggal 5 September 2020.
Sumber gambar: freepik.com