Aryo Danusiri

(Indonesia / USA)

Aryo Danusiri was born in Jakarta in 1973. Danusiri’s first Aceh documentary, “Village Goat Takes The Beating” was an official selection at the 2001 Amnesty Film Festival, Amsterdam. Since then, his ethnographic films, documentaries and short films about human rights and multicultural problems in Indonesia have been screened at various festivals including RAI (UK), the Margaret Mead Film Festival (USA), as well as in Singapore, Brisbane, Taiwan and Rotterdam. His three documentaries on Aceh has been released in DVD for International distribution by Monash University (Between Three World Project, 2005). In 2005, he finished his Master’s Degree in Visual Cultural Studies from Tromsoe University, Norway with an ethno-documentary about West Papua, “Lukas’ Moment”. This film received “Best Student Film” at the RAI Ethnographic Film Festival, UK. His latest documentary on Aceh, “Playing Between Elephants” was in asian competition section at Yamagata Documentary Festival, Japan 2007. Movies That Matter Foundation (Amnesty International Amsterdam) granted this film as "Best Human Rights Film" at Jakarta International Film Festival 2007. Danusiri is also working at Ragam Sensory Ethnography Lab, a Jakarta based Institution that develops visual media as a catalyst for cross-cultural learning and community knowledge management. At present, he is a Ph.D. candidate in Visual Anthropology at Harvard University as a Fulbright scholar. More information on Danusiri’s work can be found at www.ragam.org and www.connexxcreen.com.