Arabic Studies Program

The author discusses the methods of distribution and marketing that gave 1980's Indonesian exploitation films cult status among both local and Western audiences. He describes how both Indonesian producers and Western distributors selected films to fit Western spectators' tastes, while local audiences watched and collected these films through video cassette discs (VCDs) and alternative film festivals. He also explains how Legend films such as "Devil's Sword" and "The Warrior" positioned their villains as symbols of Suharto's New Order regime.

"""In Indonesian only.
Film is a message disseminating media and also mass communication tool. This statement 
sometimes appears when we are in film study. Film,  and media in general, could be an effective 
propaganda. As a media, film could be used as a media to promote community awareness towards 
goodness issues. The question is how far we could consider film as one media to social marketing? The 
article discusses whether we could consider film as social marketing media. If it could be considered,
what kind of films and how. Researcher took case study of Yasmin Ahmad’s films, Malaysian’s director, 
to analyze social marketing inside. All Yasmin’s films that could be analyzed in this research consist of 
multiculturalism issue, covered by love story or family issues. Hopefully this article is becoming a 
beginning study so other researchers could analyze films and film-makers in Indonesia. 

Tulisan ini dibagikan gratis dalam acara retropeksi Yasmin Ahmad dan peluncuran buku Yasmin How You Know. Buku acaranya bisa diunduh gratis di sini:
http://kineforum.org/web/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Booklet-Program-Tokoh_Yasmin-Ahmad-di-kineforum.pdf"""

Indonesian film posters were accused as plagiarism by common people. However, academically speaking, it needs deeper skills and knowledge to prove acts of plagiarism. This paper will discuss the issues around Indonesian film posters and plagiarism, including the possibility of citing in graphic design. The research will treat film posters not only as marketing tools to promote the movies, as many people consider, but also as graphic design materials. Some terms such as appropriation, homage, and pastiche will be discussed to analyze the phenomenon.

Usmar Ismail, considered as the Father of Indonesian Cinema, made films in what was then called Malaya. The titles are Korban Fitnah / Defamation Victim, produced in 1959 by Cathay-Keris Films in Singapore, and Bayangan di Waktu Fajar / Shadow at Dawn, released in 1963 with Cathay-Keris co-producing with PERFINI, Usmar’s own film production company. In Malaysia, those two films are available in VCD format. But in Indonesia, the films are forgotten and the only access to watch them is to go to Sinematek Indonesia. Those two films are cases of "Orphan Films".

An Introduction from guest editor.

"The Bad, The Worse, and The Worst: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies"

Plaridel  Journal, Special Issue, Vol 11, Issue No. 2, 2014.
Guest Editor: Ekky Imanjaya
(PhD Candidate, University of East Anglia, UK;
faculty member, school of Film, Binus International, Bina Nusantara University, Indonesia)

Front cover: http://www.plarideljournal.org/author/ekky-imanjaya 
Table of Content: http://plarideljournal.org/article/table-contents-0



1.      A Note from the Editor : The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation,  and B-Movies
By Ekky Imanjaya (guest editor; PhD Candidate, University of East Anglia;  Lecturer, Bina Nusantara University)  http://plarideljournal.org/article/significance-indonesian-cult-exploitation-and-b-movies



2.      Exploiting Indonesia: From “Primitives” to “Outraged Fugitives”
By Thomas Barker (Assistant Professor of Film and Television,  the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus)
http://plarideljournal.org/article/exploiting-indonesia-primitives-outraged-fugitives

3.              The Raiding Dutchmen: Colonial stereotypes, identity and Islam in Indonesian B-movies

By Eric Sasono  (postgraduate student at Film Studies Department, King’s College, London)

http://plarideljournal.org/article/raiding-dutchmen-colonial-stereotypes-identity-and-islam-indonesian-b-movies

4.      The Earth is Getting Hotter: Urban Inferno and Outsider Women’s Collectives in Bumi Makin Panas
By Dag Yngvesson (PhD Candidate, University of Minnesota)
http://plarideljournal.org/article/earth-getting-hotter-urban-inferno-and-outsider-women%E2%80%99s-collectives-bumi-makin-panas

5.      Challenging New Order’s Gender Ideology in Benyamin Sueb’s Betty Bencong Slebor: A Queer Reading
By Maimunah Munir (doctoral program student , South East Asian Studies, the University of Sydney,  Australia)
http://plarideljournal.org/article/challenging-new-order%E2%80%99s-gender-ideology-benyamin-sueb%E2%80%99s-betty-bencong-slebor-queer-reading-0

6.      Genre versus Local Specificity: Configuring Rangda and Durga in Balinese and Bengali Films
By Makbul Mubarak  (Lecturer, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara)—coming soon.
Abstract:
http://www.plarideljournal.org/article/genre-versus-local-specificity-configuring-rangda-and-durga-balinese-and-bengali-films


7.      Beneath Still Waters: Brian Yuzna and the Transnational Indonesian Terror Text
By Xavier Mendik  (Associate Head in the School of Art, Media and Design at the University of Brighton, Director of Cine-Excess International Film Festival
http://plarideljournal.org/article/beneath-still-waters-brian-yuzna%E2%80%99s-ritual-return-indonesian-cinema

Documents:

1.      When East Meets West: American and Chinese influences on early Indonesian Action cinema

The List of Filmography of Early Indonesian Action Movies (1926-1941)
compiled by by Bastian Meiresonne (Asian movies specialist, director of Garuda Power: The Spirit Within)
http://plarideljournal.org/article/when-east-meets-west-american-and-chinese-influences-early-indonesian-action-cinema-list

2.      On Lady Terminator
Interview with Barbara Anne Constable
By Andrew Leavold (Ph.D. candidate, Griffith University, director of “The Search for Weng Weng”)
http://plarideljournal.org/article/lady-terminator-interview-barbara-anne-constable

3.      Beneath Still Waters: The Brian Yuzna Interview http://plarideljournal.org/article/beneath-still-waters-brian-yuzna-interview
By Xavier Mendik

4.      Scripting an Indonesian Monster: The John Penney Interview:  http://plarideljournal.org/article/scripting-indonesian-monster-john-penney-interview

For Indonesians,  particularly  for Generation of the 1980s, it is commonly known that Si Unyil , Indonesian  TV puppet show series,  is the most popular TV program in the 1980s (Kitley 153).  Since 1 April 1981,  every Sunday morning, from 1981 to  1993, most of the children in Indonesia sit in their own houses, or in neighbors’ houses and district offices, to watch the show on TV, and later memorize the songs, imitate the dialogs,  and discuss the stories.  It became a weekly ritual for kids (Imanda 2004, 51).

The paper will interrogate why and how it has deep influence in pop culture.  If the reason is its cult status that made the phenomenon, to what extent can we consider Si Unyil as a cult TV program, considering Indonesia in the 1980s and 2010s have different kind of dynamics and characteristics that may be different from Western cult media and may not  be always compatible with mainstream Western cult theories ? 
I will investigate the connection between the TV program with its  cult status in relation with childhood nostalgia,  collective memory shared within The 1980s generation, and fans productivities

Banyak orang mengunggah berbagai materi ke meedia sosial yang berhubungan dengan memori kolektif.  Pertanyaannya: Sejauh mana kita bisa menganggap Media-Baru, dalam hal ini Youtube dan Facebook, sebagai museum? Dan apa kendalanya?
Penulis membatasi masalah pada memori kolektif kaum urban atas budaya pop yang pernah mereka alami, khususnya materi audio visual. Dan umumnya sumber berasal  dari cuplikan TVRI atau film-film bioskop. Dan fokus paper ini adalah Youtube dan
Facebook dengan materi audio visual karya anak bangsa sendiri.

Ini adalah paper yang saya presentasikan di  Universitas Mercu Buana, 10 Mei 2011. Versi cetaknya dimuat dalam buku " The Reposition of Communication in the Dynamic Convergence: Reposisi Komunikasi dalam Dinamika Konvergensi" (Universitas Mercu Buana, Januari 2012).

Link: http://fikom.mercubuana.ac.id/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SemuaTerekamTakPernahMati_EkkyImanjaya.pdf

As non-state agents, cultural elites along with the government played important roles in cultural history of Indonesia in New Order period (1966-1998). Krishna Sen overviews history of Indonesian Cinema in New Order in one sentence: “The New Order inherited a cinema that expressed a highly individualist and elitist approach to society” (Sen 1994, 94).  In the Indonesian context, culture elites are a group of prominent figures who share the same  ideology and mostly belong to nationalist wing who try to play a role as, In Toynbee’s term,
a group of “creative minority”. Krishna Sen describes them as “the tiny urban, educated, national political elites, which since independence had been bound by personal ties that bridged ‘conflict of interest’ and ideology” (Sen 1994, 27). The phenomenon can be read in
articles written by most prominent film critics, journalists, historians, and academia such as Asrul Sani (poet, cultural thinker, prominent writer, award-winning scriptwriter, director), Rosihan Anwar (senior journalist), Sumardjono (filmmaker), Misbach Jusa Biran (film historian, founder of Sinematek Indonesia, filmmaker), and Salim Said (film scholar). They
also played roles in some film institutions and organizations, such as Festival Film Indonesia, censorship board, National Film Council (Dewan Film Nasional). They wanted  to frame Indonesian film to fit in the concept of film nasional (national film), where the goals were to “search Indonesian faces on screen” (1978) and should be “with cultural and
educational purposes” (Film Kultural Edukatif, 1982-1983) (2010).
In this paper, I will  elaborate why and how Indonesian cultural elites in New Order era have tried to exclude  local exploitation films from the discourses of concept and official history of national  cinema and national film cultures, and tried to negotiate with various kinds of politics of  tastes.
By investigating archives such as film policies and media clippings, I will underline  the taste battle between the government and cultural elites and other stakeholders, namely  local film producers-distributors-exhibitors (including Layar Tancap/traveling cinema companies), and domestic mainstream audience, as well as international distributors.

My article on "Tiga Dara" (Three Sisters, Usmar Ismail, 1957) and "Ini Kisah Tiga Dara" (Three Sassy Sisters, Nia Dinata, 2016), both in English and Chinese. About the importance of the films (the restoration, the content, and the context).
It was originally published in 2017 Taipei Film Festival catalog.

Lebih dari sekadar tontonan akhir pekan, Panggung Boneka Si Unyil yang lebih dari 30 tahun lalu dianggap sebagai alat propaganda Orde Baru (Orba), kini menjadi media cult dan punya pengaruh trivial cukup signifikan dalam budaya pop. Sementara para penggemarnya yang menjadi target propaganda Orba—anak-anak generasi 1980-an yang kini menjelma menjadi penggerak ekonomi-budaya-politik-sosial—memilah-milah ingatan bersama dan justru menjadi salah satu penyebab keruntuhan Orde Baru.

Bibliografi

Bappenas. “Repelita IV, Buku III.” Jakarta: Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional, 9 Januari 2009. https://www.bappenas.go.id/id/data-dan-informasi-utama/dokumen-perencanaan-dan-pelaksanaan/repelita-iv---buku-iii/ diakses 20 Oktober 2017.
Fiske, John. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom”. The Cult Film Reader, edited by Mathijs, , Ernest and Xavier Mendik,  Open University Press, 2007,  p445-455.
Grant, Barry. “Science Fiction Double Feature: Ideology in the Cult Film”.  The Cult Film Experience, Beyond All Reason. Telotte, JP, Austin:  University of Texas Press, 1991, p 122-137.
Hendriyani, Ed Hollander, Leen d’Haenens and Johannes Beentjes. “Children's Television in Indonesia”. Journal of Children and Media, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2011, 86-100.
Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures.  London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
Imanda, Tito. “Si Unyil Anak Indonesia”. Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia no 75 (2004). http://journal.ui.ac.id/index.php/jai/article/view/3518/2794 diakses 20 Oktober 2017.
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture (Where Old and New Media Collide). New York, NYU Press, 2006.
Jenkins, Henry.  Textual Poachers: Television Fans and  Participatory Culture.  Routledge, 1992
Kitley, Philip. “Pancasila in the Minor Key: TVRI’s Si Unyil Models the Child”.  Indonesia 68 (October 1999), 129–152.
Mathijs, Ernest and Xavier Mendik.  The Cult Film Reader. Open University Press, 2007.
Mathijs, Ernest and Jamie Sexton. Cult Cinema: an Introduction.  Wiley-Blackwell 2011.

Film-induced tourism becomes a new emerging issue in tourism and scholarly research for the last 10 years. London’s “Harry Potter” series and New Zealand’s “Lord of the Rings” are among the best practices of the trend. On the other hand, Indonesia is a country with many beautiful places to visit by both local and international tourists. The number of visitors increases significantly every year. However, there is no contribution from film industry, both from local or international production, related to this increasing numbers of tourists, not before national movie production “Laskar Pelangi, 2008” (Rainbow Troops, 2008) by Riri Riza, and international box office movie production “Eat, Pray Love, 2010”. The study research will discuss about film induced tourism issues in Indonesia, particularly on why and how the two films--so far, until recently, only those two films--became phenomenon in film tourism--and why other films did not.

Film archiving and local exploitation films, let alone the trashy film archive, are marginal in the discourses of film journalism, scholarship, policies, and criticism in Indonesia (Imanjaya, 2009c; Imanjaya, 2012a; Imanjaya, 2014). However, this paper will demonstrate the importance of Indonesian exploitation cinema, alternative film archives, and exploitation film preservation. It will focus on the output of Mondo Macabro, a transnational DVD label that consistently preserves world trashy films, including Indonesian films produced from the 1970s to the 1990s. By focusing on its DVD paratexts, that is, its DVD covers, special features, and online promotional materials, and applying the Chaperone archiving model also applied by Criterion Collection, this paper will also argue that Mondo Macabro gives trashy or cult films a new lease on life, and more importantly, treats them as collector’s items.

During the dictatorship of Indonesia’s New Order regime (1966-1998), local exploitation films, layar tancap (traveling cinema) and its spectators were marginalised by legitimate culture.  For example, layar tancap shows were framed to only operate in rural and suburban areas and were policed with several strict policies. Nonetheless, in this paper, I will demonstrate that layar tancap shows and their rural audiences are signs of cultural resistance which challenges legitimate culture, and that exploitation movies were a significant part of the process. By observing the New Order’s film policies as well as general and trade magazines, I will investigate why and how this kind of cinema operated as displays of classic Indonesian exploitation movies - the films the New Order was actually trying to eliminate - and how they generated a unique subculture of rural spectatorship. Here, I also want to highlight how various kinds of politics of taste - from the government to the rural spectators and the layar tancap entrepreneurs - interplayed in relation with local exploitation films, its rural audiences, and its culture of exhibition.