The Indonesian film industry has a long history that can not disregard influences from other film industries. Indonesian filmmakers are expected to develop partnership with foreign film industries, to learn from movies from Hong Kong, Bollywood, and Hollywood. But not long after its heyday, the Indonesian film industry collapsed and movie theaters have been filled with movies that were supposed to be its models.

The paper discusses external factors, such as politics and economic globalization, which generate problems in the Indonesian film industry. By examining the penetration of Hollywood movies in the Indonesian market, specifically in 1991-1992, this paper focuses on the clash between Hollywood companies and Indonesian distributors; while Indonesian filmmakers were screaming for help, the government was reluctant to lend a hand. This peculiar situation contributed in the formation of the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers. Around those times, Putu Setia, optimistically said that with high quality Hollywood movies to watch, Indonesia will have better audiences, and thus better audiences will create better future filmmakers. However, as Edwin Baker argues—with Hollywood movies as examples—to succeed in foreign markets, a film has to have more universal content and less local content. Should the next generation filmmakers learn to produce movies with less local contents?