💼 Brief Take: Jumbo, Indonesia’s Blockbuster Animation with a Big Heart
Jumbo win for Indonesia’s animation industry.
Jumbo has made history as the highest-grossing Indonesian animated film of all time and is set for a global release.
Indonesian animators are now creating their own characters and story plots, while offering a nearly Pixar-level production quality.
“Jumbo” became the highest-grossing Indonesian animated film of all time after reaching one million admissions in just seven days following its theatrical premiere, Variety reported on 7 April 2025.
Eveline’s Take:
🍿 Despite an Indonesian lawyer’s recommendation to watch horror sequel “Qodrat 2”, I picked Jumbo over the weekend (I’m sure Qodrat 2 has its own horror-loving following). The Cinema 21 theatre that screened Jumbo was packed with kids, teenagers, their parents and other movie-goers.
🍿 I was impressed by the quality of Indonesian studio Visinema’s production, which is not far from the standard of American animation legend Pixar. The film also incorporates local features, such as the layout of a typical Indonesian house and the narrow streets in a kampung (village). It pays attention to details, down to the floor tiles or the hair of a goat.
🍿 The plot is a bit of a stretch and the main character is annoyingly selfish at times, but the core theme of familial love and friendship shines through. The movie soundtrack “Selalu Ada di Nadimu” (Always in Your Veins) – sung by popular Indonesian singer Bunga Citra Lestari alongside two child stars – is also pretty good.
🍿 Back in 2014, I wrote a feature about a local studio on the Indonesian island of Batam that produced the Garfield animated television series. “The Southeast Asian region is very new to the media game. I think we've been in the business for about a decade or just over a decade, whereas the rest of the world has had a lot of time developing their creative economy,” Mike Wiluan, the boss of Infinite Studios, told me at the time.
🍿 Indonesian animation has come a long way since then. Instead of following someone else’s “creation bible”, which was used by Wiluan’s studio to bring Garfield to life more than a decade ago, Indonesian animators are now creating their own characters and story plots.
🍿 With its upcoming global release, Jumbo – which was produced by more than 420 local animators and creators over five years – will be putting Indonesia on the world map.