Spire Chief Operating officer, Jeffrey Bahar, was quoted in a Fortune business magazine article about the Indonesian film industry published on 9 November 2023.

The article, “The CEO behind Indonesia’s biggest movie ever wants to make your next foreign film hit”, was written by journalist, Lionel Lim.

It profiles Manoj Punjabi, producer of Indonesia’s highest-grossing film KKN di Desa Penari, a horror movie. He is the CEO of production house MD Entertainment, backed by China’s Tencent, and he outlines the reason for the movie’s success. 

The article cites Spire’s data that local films and domestically-produced content in Indonesia captured 61% of the market in Indonesia in 2022. 

Jeffrey is quoted as saying that Indonesian filmgoers are looking for more content that reflect their daily lives. As proof, Jeffrey points to the fact that, this year alone, Indonesia has had 14 films reach gold class classification, defined as films that sell a million tickets or more.

The story also looks at Indonesia’s growing film industry, how it is behind South Korea in terms of film production standards, and how there is plenty of room for global growth of Indonesia’s domestic cinema.

To read the article on Fortune, click here. This article requires a user subscription.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Marie Teo
Manager, Group Corporate Communications
Spire Research and Consulting
Phone: (65) 6838 5355
E-mail: marie.teo@spireresearch.com