Cinemas on the brink of bankcruptcy

JAKARTA (JP): At least 800 cinemas are on the verge of bankruptcy and may soon follow the 3,000 that have already closed down.

The Ministry of Information's director general of radio, television and film, Ishadi SK, said yesterday that most of the 800 cinemas catered to poorer audiences by screening locally made films.

However the ailing national film industry has produced only a handful of movies in the last few years.

Ishadi said that these cinemas were also finding it difficult to purchase new copies of local films to entice audiences, while purchasing new major foreign movies was too expensive.

Owners of the cinemas are attempting to survive by recycling old movies but audiences are quickly tiring of these, Antara reported.

Ishadi said the government would do its best by assisting with the distribution of films, but due to its limited budget it has yet to work out a viable means to do this.