So sayonara, nice to know ya, Hollywood?
“BUT YOU PLAYED it for a midnight show last week, so how on earth you do not know whether your theater will be showing it again anytime soon?” I could hear myself almost screaming to the phone.
A lady at the other end of the receiver, if she’s normal then she must be hating me by now, replied calmly, “it depends on the central office, miss. I really couldn’t say…”
I interrupted abruptly, “but logically, if you have the movie, then you will play it, right? The reports said that cinemas won’t be able to play whatever films HAVEN’T imported, but 127 Hours absolutely HAS ENTERED the country, because you got the film already, you even showed it last week, RIGHT?” I felt the necessity to emphasize whatever words I have, because it is clear that this argument of mine is very logical, and besides, I still couldn’t forgive myself for not just hitting the cinema last week to watch 127 Hours.
“But really, I cannot say anything…”
Another immediate interruption, “but how come? How come you do not know and cannot say anything?”
She sighed, a long-deep exhalation, “it depends on the central office, miss. I cannot say anything, really. The film is here, but whether it will be shown soon, I really don’t know.”
“Where’s your central office?” I asked in despair.
“In Wahid Hasyim,” she said, referring to a main street in Central Jakarta.
“Right, thanks!”
These days, seriously, I probably would kill for a James Franco.
Yes, the lady I talked to over the phone yesterday, she’s a 21 Cineplex employee. I was literally forcing her to explain to me something she clearly was unaware of. Sheesh! Sorry, am on the rag!
But ow, ow, fuckity-ow have you heard the news? Cinemas, at across the archipelago, face threat of Hollywood boycott. Yes, HOLLYWOOD, where fine, not so fine, and far from fine fantasies came. It is because of a tax impose — a new import policy drew by the Indonesian respective government that went into effect last month, January 2011.
Today, I mean, the days before the halting of foreign-film distribution, “imported films already had to pay a 23.75 percent excise duty, a 10 percent tax to the central government and another 10-15 percent of the profit from ticket sales to regional governments” Noorca M. Massardi, the chairman of the Indonesian Cinemas Association and spokesman for 21 Cineplex, told Indonesian media.
The new tax on distribution, he said, was also as much as 23.75 percent.
“It is an outrageous import tax on distribution rights that has never before existed in any film business practice in the world,” Noorca said.
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