Regional films can be an asset to national film industry development. This line was conveyed by Dr. Maman Wijaya, Director of Motion Picture Development Center (Pusbang Film) of Ministry of Education and Culture at Jogjakarta Communication Conference (JCC) in Yogyakarta on Saturday (23/2).

Maman stated, “Indonesia has a number of promising filmmakers, spreading in various regions of Indonesia. Yogyakarta is one of the regions providing brilliant filmmakers.” He then added that Hollywood filmmakers are starting to look up some regions of Indonesia as places to find ideas.

The Pusbang Film aspires of becoming a coordinator to formulate regulations which take side on Indonesian film industry. This one aims to create a healthy and competitive ecosystem. Subsequently, the Pusbang Film also attempts to become a facilitator to increase quality, competency, productivity, and contribution of policy holders and benefit recipients of films.

Maman continued that Pusbang Film has contributed in activities to advance national films. Few examples are contribution to facilitate film activities through film development for community and society, production of short and documentary films, participation on festival and international film market, Indonesia film weekends in an international scope, and purchasing film rights or licenses.

Additionally, participants of the seminar were from Congress of Communication Science Association of Muhammadiyah Universities (APIK PTM) which consists 20 communication departments. Participants also involved JCC speakers from more than 20 universities. All participants seemed enthusiastic to listen to Maman. Meanwhile, Chief of seminar committee Dr. Filosa Gita Sukmono informed that the academic conference was an effort of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) and Universitas Ahmad Dahlan  (UAD) to accelerate communication science, especially in the field of films.

Filosa continued, “Our main theme is based on a fact that communication is now confronting a disruptive era. Nevertheless, there still stand opportunities to produce low-budgeted films through digital technology. At the JCC, we also collaborate with four journal publications, namely Jurnal Kominkator, Channel, Aristo, and The Messenger. These journals are used as publication media.”