©2025 IJOSH All right reserved. Open access under CC BY NC–SA license doi:10.20473/ijosh.v14i1.2025.48-55.
Received May 07, 2024; 1
st
revision August 12, 2024; 2
nd
revision October 17, 2024; Accepted March 20, 2025; Published: April 2025.
Published by Universitas Airlangga.
Health, Safety, and Environment in the Indonesian Film Industry
Ekky Imanjaya
1
, Cynthia MF Pangabean
2
1
Film Department, School of Design, Bina Nusantara University, Indonesia
Jl. Jalur Sutera Barat Kav. 21, Alam Sutera, Tangerang, Jakarta, 11480 Indonesia
2
Independent scholar
Jakarta, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
Introduction: As stipulated in the Indonesian Labor Law, every worker is entitled to work safety and health protection,
including the film industry. This research focuses on two articles in the Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) regulations
and the Law of Film Year 2009. However, the Indonesian film industry has not officially implemented these laws. There
have been several cases of HSE, which caused death or fatal injuries to film workers, without applying the regulations.
Other HSE issues include the cases where only a few film producers gave insurance to the film workers, applied proper
risk assessment, or provided first aid kits. The paper will overview HSE in the Indonesian film industry by mapping out
the problems and potential solutions. Methods: By having in-depth interviews with key persons in the field, such as the
workers and film producers, this research aims to map out such issues and answering why and how the laws on work health
and safety are not implemented in the Indonesian film industry. Result: This research has resulted in maps of problems and
recommendations for policymakers, film workers, and related institutes concerning HSE and the rights of film workers,
including of the lack awareness of film workers on HSE and HSE-related curriculum in film education, as well as the need
for stronger film associations and union. Conclusion: HSE in the Indonesian film industry must be evaluated to be more
effective. Some factors to be reviewed include law enforcement in contracts, health insurance, the collaboration of various
parties, HSE-related knowledge in the curriculum in Indonesian film education, and the application of Work Competency
Standards (SKKNI) to all film professional associations.
Keywords: film industry, film policies in Indonesia, health and safety environment, occupational safety and health
Corresponding Author:
Ekky Imanjaya
Email: eimanjaya@binus.edu
Telephone: +6221–53696919
Cite this as: Imanjaya, E. and Pangabean, C. MF. (2025) ‘Health, Safety, and Environment in the Indonesian Film Industry’, The
Indonesian Journal of Occupational Safety and Health, 14(1), pp. 48-55.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Indonesian Journal of Occupational Safety and Health
2025, 14 (1): 48-55
p ISSN: 2301 8046, e ISSN: 2540 7872
http://doi.org10.20473/ijosh.v14i1.2025.48-55
INTRODUCTION
Sad news, a film crew named Adit died in an
accident, falling from the scaffolding / steiger while
installing a tracking point on the green screen at
3 am. (Satyani Adiwibowo Twitter account, @
MissSatyani, 31 January 2020).
Work accident cases in the Indonesian film
industry always occur. The tweet above was a case
in 2020. The most recent case, at the end of August
2024, resulted in a film worker, Rifqi Novara, dying
due to an accident, as a result of fatigue (Sindikasi,
2024)
Generally, the film industry is known as a
field with “extended work days and nights, a wide
variety of tasks (nearly 60 different trades and
positions), unstable employment, and highly variable
production agendas, film locations, and work
schedules” (Bourdouxhe and Toulouse, 2001; Small,
2020; Gawley and Dixon, 2021). These elements,
directly and indirectly, have a significant impact
on film workers' health and safety (Bourdouxhe
and Toulouse, 2001). The potential risks include
the involvement of electricity, chemicals, plants,
machinery (Small, 2020), and even lasers (O’Hagan,
1998). Another term is “labor precarity” (De Peuter,
2011; Khaled and Ansar, 2024) and “precarious
labor," which include “income instability, lack of
a safety net, an erratic work schedule, uncertainty
about continuing employment, the blurring of work
and nonwork time, and the absence of collective
representation” (De Peuter, 2011; Morgan, Wood
and Nelligan, 2013; Arditi, 2021; Larroulet, Daza
and Bórquez, 2023).