Two films that had long been awaited in the country, namely Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part-2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon would be started to be shown this week.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Hollywood films will be shown again in several Indonesian cinemas as of July 29, 2011, Tourism and Culture Minister Jero Wacik said here on Thursday.

"As of July 29 2011 Hollywood films will again be shown in several cinemas," he said.

He said two films that had long been awaited in the country, namely Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part-2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon would be started to be shown this week.

After the two films several other Hollywood films had already queued up for showing which would be followed by other films.

"My appeal is that although Hollywood films have started to enter again please also see Indonesian films whose quality have already improved," he said.

He said he would continue to find ways to make imported films able to come into the country again although there was still a tug of war over tax arrears totaling Rp25 billion and a fine of 1,000 percent.

He said national film industries including cinemas in Indonesia with a total of 676 screens need to be given support with more film supply.

The capacity of national film production is now around 100 titles and therefore more films are still needed to meet the need of cinemas.

"Imported films must enter so that cinemas in Indonesia will continue to operate," he said.

The minister said he would be of concern if the potential of Hollywood film fans reaching one million people would flee to neighboring country Singapore to fulfill their hobby causing the loss of foreign exchange reserves in terms of tourism.

He said he did not have the authority with regard to the tax problem faced by film importers.

"That is not my authority. My authority is reviving national film industry," he said.

He said however that the legal process still continued but it did not mean that the tax debtors would be freed from paying their obligations.

Almost five months major Hollywood studios grouped in the Motion Picture Association (MPA) conducting a commercial hold, it would as of July 15, 2011, conduct exports of its blockbuster film products to Indonesia.

The revocation of the commercial hold by MPA was done following the issuance of the finance minister`s regulation Number 90/PMK.011/2011 regulating a fundamental change in the system of calculating the import duty from formerly based on a metric system to duration and from an ad valorem tariff system to a specific tariff system.

The finance minister`s regulation Number 102/PMK.011/2011 would strengthen Hollywood major studies` confidence to export films to Indonesia.

PT Omega Film meanwhile has been trusted to be the major partner of the MPA to import four blockbuster films including Transformer" Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part-2.

The minister said total films imported from January to July 2011 reached 75. The films are imported by nine out of 65 registered film importer companies.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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