Kedok Ketawa was screened as late as August 1944 , but may now be lost . Movies in the Indies was recorded on highly flammable nitrate film , and after a fire destroyed much of Produksi Film Negara 's warehouse in 1952 , old films shot on nitrate was deliberately destroyed . While the American visual anthropologist Karl G. Heider suggest that all Indonesian films from before 1950 are lost , J.B. Kristanto 's Katalog Film Indonesia record several as having survived at Sinematek Indonesia 's archives , and Biran write that some Japanese propaganda films have survived at the Netherlands Government Information Service .