Banyu Frame Holdings said on Tuesday it had bought a 72% stake in Lentera Kaca Pictures for Rp1.86 trillion (about €103 million), giving the group control of the Jakarta studio’s film library, production facilities and distribution arm. The deal, announced before trading closed, abruptly escalates a dispute that had simmered for months over who should control the company’s catalogue.
Twenty-three filmmakers had urged the studio’s board in August to keep its archive under local management, after talks about a sale began. They fear a single distributor will decide which older films return to cinemas and which new projects receive funding. “We were told the archive was not for sale. By lunchtime, it belonged to a conglomerate,” said director Lalita Sundaram-Anand.
A catalogue changes hands
Lentera Kaca has made films for more than four decades and holds rights to 164 features, including restored dramas and regional-language titles rarely screened outside Indonesia. Banyu Frame also takes over 11 production stages and assumes responsibility for about 240 staff. The companies did not disclose whether the purchase includes plans to cut jobs or remove titles from rival streaming services.
The acquisition also threatens to reshape financing for a film already caught in the dispute. A production by Lentera Kaca in South Sumatra, about families rebuilding livelihoods after peatland fires, lost 19 shooting days to smoke during August and September. Its crew had restarted filming; producers now say they have no written assurance that the new owner will release the remaining budget.
A film can survive a delay; it cannot survive being quietly shelved by the only company that owns its future.
Sandra Rocha, producer
Rocha said she and other producers learned of the takeover from the company announcement, not from the studio’s executives. The project needs about Rp28 billion (roughly €1.6 million) to finish and prepare a cinema release. “We have cast, locations and months of work tied up in this,” she said. “No one has told us who can approve the next payment.”
Filmmakers demand guarantees
Banyu Frame said the studio would keep operating under its own name and that existing production contracts would be honoured. Its acquisition plan promises a restoration programme for 40 older films over three years, but gives no release schedule for titles already licensed to other platforms. Thabo J. Fisher, a screen-industry researcher, said the purchase combined two of the country’s largest film distributors.
The competition regulator is expected to review the deal before the transfer is finalised, although officials gave no timetable on Tuesday. Filmmakers are asking for a public list of the titles covered and written guarantees that projects already in production will be completed. Lentera Kaca’s next board meeting is scheduled for 20 October; directors say they will seek answers there before deciding whether to withdraw films from the company’s release slate.
