Visinema — the studio behind Indonesian and Southeast Asia’s all-time animated box-office champ “Jumbo” — used its JAFF Market platform to urge the country’s entertainment sector to prioritise long-term IP creation, with CEO Herry B. Salim calling for a shift away from one-off projects and for stronger government support to help local players compete globally.
“When we talk about evergreen IPs it’s not just an end product we try to sell. It’s about storytelling [as its medium] in creating a sustainable creative ecosystem,” he told Variety. “When they create a storytelling product, they have to think of IP and not merely a one-off anything.”
At the JAFF Market Visinema booth over a mini talkshow regarding the future of Indonesian film industry, Salim discussed how much more mainstream film products are; so far as to say it’ll become “similar to FMGC [Fast-moving consumer goods].” “The way people consume these [film] ‘goods’ will definitely be up to par,” he added.
With how fast the industry is growing, Salim emphasized the importance of not only becoming consumers of the film products itself but to dare to compete globally. “Sure we consume so much of foreign products. But what do we get from just consuming them?”
Salim firmly believes in the strength of creating entire IPs, and calls upon the desired support coming from the government as well. Malaysia’s animation industry has been proven to flourish since the Digital Economy Corporation created a grant program for digital content creation including the production of animated motion pictures. He said, “If you produce an animation movie in Malaysia, the government grants a portion of its cost. How can we flourish and compete with a program as such, if not through the same support systems?”
“We have to understand who our viewers are,” Salim added. The studio revealed the teaser for “Na Willa (2026)” at their booth at the second year of JAFF Market. The release of the film was previously unveiled in November with the team behind animation hit “Jumbo” reuniting.
The studio’s upcoming feature carries on the essence of its previous hit counterpart, as it highlights its tagline “For us, our children, and the inner child within us.” This theme is a significant part of Visinema’s DNA, according to Salim. “It’s about storytelling that matters.”