Government states film is part of the nation's civilisational journey

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Culture has reaffirmed that film is an important part of Indonesian cultural civilisation and has undergone a transformative journey that includes a strategic role. “Film is part of it because it turns out to have a very strategic position starting from culture, there is art, technology, and so on. Film is an accumulation of all those fields,” said the Director General of Development, Utilisation, and Cultivation of Culture at the Ministry of Culture, Ahmad Mahendra, during a discussion on revising the Film Law monitored online in Jakarta on Friday. Mahendra views that film should contain cultural values up to education, considering that film is a medium capable of carrying those elements. In addition, he called on filmmakers to present stories that can foster pride among Indonesian viewers. “So identity, national consciousness, and so on, of course, the purpose of the filmmakers must reach (the audience),” he said. Film, he continued, becomes a broad medium capable of shaping the nation. He hopes that the cultural mission can be presented through film by filmmakers as a collective effort to advance culture. “From the film sector, we hope that even the cultural mission is largely entrusted through film,” he said. On the same occasion, the General Chairman of the Indonesian Film Board, Fauzan Zidhi, hopes that film festivals in Indonesia can become facilitators for filmmakers. “The hope in the next four years is that these festivals are actually, in my view, a crucible; actually, if abroad, for example, one festival in Asia and then the first Indonesian film enters there. So there is a festival in Indonesia that nurtures our prospective filmmakers, our future replacements, given space to grow, given space to collaborate,” said Fauzan. The presence of film festivals capable of screening films through an inter-country festival cycle, according to him, can solidify the nation’s works and open wider networks for national filmmakers.