Why young Indonesians are falling back in love with cinemas and the analogue life

Li Xueying (0:02)

This is a podcast by The Straits Times.

Hi, I'm Li Xueying, and welcome to Asian Insider. In this episode, I speak to The Straits Times Indonesia correspondent Karina Tehusijarana about why going to the movies, jumping rope, and customizing keyboards are the hottest things to do in Indonesia today. Hi, Karina, welcome to the show.

Karina Tehusijarana (0:41)

Hi, Xueying, good to be here.

Li Xueying (0:42)

Yeah, I think this is the first time I've had you on the show, so it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. So Karina, I'm going to start with a bit of a trick question.

What was the last movie that you watched?

Karina Tehusijarana (0:56)

So actually, the last movie I watched was for the article that we're going to talk about. It was Sentimental Value. It's an indie movie from Norway.

Li Xueying (1:06)

Right, okay. And where do you watch it and who do you watch it with?

Karina Tehusijarana (1:09)

I watched it by myself at a cinema.

Li Xueying (1:14)

Oh, because it was for work.

Karina Tehusijarana (1:15)

Because it was for work. But the last movie that I watched for fun was The Odyssey, and I watched it with my mom.

Li Xueying (1:23)

Okay. Did she like it?

Karina Tehusijarana (1:24)

Yeah, she really enjoyed it actually. Even though it was very long.

Li Xueying (1:28)

Yeah, good to know. So I wanted to ask you the question because sometimes, nowadays when we ask people around us, when was the last time you watched a film? I think a lot of people say, oh gosh, I can barely remember the last time I watched something. But actually, what you wrote in your last article was really about how in Indonesia, at a time when everyone else is chronicling the death of cinema, the death of going to the movies, you wrote about something that was happening in reverse. You wrote about how in Indonesia, more cinema theaters are opening and that more Indonesians are actually watching movies.

I think the fact that you watched two movies quite recently is testament to that. So tell me a bit more about this development in Indonesia. Why is it happening?

Karina Tehusijarana (2:15)

Yeah. So in the article, I talked to someone, Linda Gozali, who is a veteran movie producer here.

One of the main reasons that she said was the reason for the boom is because during COVID, Indonesians were stuck inside and didn't have anything to do. She described it like a spring being compressed.

Li Xueying (2:44)

Yes, that's right.

Karina Tehusijarana (2:45)

After once everything started to reopen, people just started flocking to places that would give a communal experience is what she called it. One of those places is the cinema, the movie theaters.

And that's what really brought people along to start watching movies en masse. And one of the big booms also was horror, because people could, it's like you can share that experience with people when you're watching horror movies, like you're screaming with them, like you're scared with them. So that's why she thought that cinema's cinema attendance started going up by a lot after COVID.

Li Xueying (3:33)

Right, and how much more were the numbers going up by?

Karina Tehusijarana (3:37)

It was about, like of course during COVID, it decreased by a lot, right? So then it bumped back up to over like 100 million attendances by 2023, and it's already like 200 plus million admissions in 2025, yeah.

Li Xueying (4:01)

Right, okay. And what about the building of movie theaters that also increase, right, to cater to the increased demand?

Karina Tehusijarana (4:09)

Yes, there are more screens and there are more, like I wrote in the article, there's like more different kinds of cinemas, like there's this new, relatively new micro cinema chain that opened this year, that's opening on top of mini markets, places like that. And just recently, their CGV, which is a Korean movie cinema chain, that is the second largest chain here in Indonesia.

They recently opened a CGV art house studio here in Jakarta, and that's where I watched Sentimental Value. So it's a different kind of those two...

Li Xueying (4:55)

Experience, right?

Karina Tehusijarana (4:56)

Yeah, those two different cinemas give different kinds of movies than the mainstream cinemas.

Li Xueying (5:03)

I just want to go back to the point that you made just now, citing the industry player, who did, as you said, attribute the recovery to Indonesia's pent up demand for shared experiences again after the COVID pandemic. And as you said, she had this great quote, everything had been compressed like a spring. At some point, it was going to snap back, and that snapback happened in 2022