Indonesia on the Silver Screen1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAs Hollywood films once again begin to flood Indonesian cinemas after a five-month boycott, the local film industry is preparing to fall back under the shadow of imported blockbusters.
But a new book, “Asian Hot Shots: Sinema Indonesia,” serves as a reminder of the country’s own rich cinematic tradition and how film can act as a barometer of political and social change.
The book was first published by Bentang in Germany last year, following the 2009 Asian Hot Shots Film Festival in Berlin, which focused on Indonesian movies. In June this year, an Indonesian-language version of the book was launched at the Goethe Institute in Central Jakarta.
It presents a collection of nine scholarly papers, edited by the curator and director of the 2009 festival, Yvonne Michalik, from the Potsdam-Babelsberg University of Film and Television in Germany, and Laura Coppens, a social anthropologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
