Asian Cinema, Fall/Winter 2010 7 Historical Inheritance and Film Nasional in Post-Reformasi Indonesian Cinema Thomas Barker Introduction When Ekskul (2006, Extracurricular) won best ilm at the 2006 Indonesian Film Festival (FFI), a large group of young ilmmakers protested and many returned their awards from previous years’ festivals. Their protest centered on what they saw as the obvious unprofessionalism of the FFI in awarding best ilm prize to a ilm that had plagiarized music from other, notably Hollywood, ilms. Careful to avoid criticism of the director Nayato Fionuala and producer Shankar RS (Indika), they formed the Masyarakat Film Indonesia (MFI, In- donesian Film Community) to direct their concerns about the ilm industry. Later in 2008, members launched an unsuccessful case in the constitutional court to challenge the legality of the ilm censorship board. They clearly felt that many of the old institutions still needed reform. In writing about this new generation of ilmmakers and the ilms that have been produced in the post-Suharto period, after 1998, many commentators express disappointment in the ilms being made. The writers from the inlu- ential online ilm website Rumah Film (www.rumahilm.org) have developed the most consistent discourse in this regard, and it is worth quoting Ekky Imanjaya at some length here: Why don’t they try to express their hope and critical ideas through ilms? Although the Reform has opened many opportunities to make ilms in accordance with their idealism, only few political ilms were produced. While Garin Nugroho often makes clear political and cultural statements in his ilms, this younger generation mostly shows the opposite indication. […] Why does the young generation choose political movement [i.e. MFI] instead of aesthetic movement? (Imanjaya, 2009) Fellow writer Hikmat Darmawan echoes this sentiment, saying that con- temporary ilms are “still aflicted with the sickness of deintellectualization” (2007). 1 Underpinning these criticisms is the idea that the new generation of ilmmakers has somehow shortchanged the audience, reformasi, and the legacy of Indonesian ilmmaking. During the MFI campaign against Ekskul, senior commentator Rosihan Anwar (b. 1922) stepped into the debate accusing the young members of MFI of being arrogant. “They think that the ‘world begins with them’ and history is just belittled just as the works and efforts of their forefathers are simply dismissed. They have no respect for their seniors and do not want to socialize with their elders.” 2 More importantly though, Anwar likens the MFI actions to the 1964 boycott of American ilms by the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) backed PAPFIAS (Action Committee for the Boycott of Imperialist American