Film, Activism, and Sexual Politics in Indonesia: A Study of Cultural Producers, Nation, and Sexuality after the 1998 Political Reform

The project aims to study how Indonesia’s new film generation, who emerged after the downfall of the authoritarian regime in 1998, redefines the nation through sexual politics within the contexts of a new democratic landscape, the rise of political Islam, and the prominence of the sexuality discourse.
The project is significant in proposing an innovative mix of interdisciplinary perspectives to address a critical gap in cinema studies, in which Indonesian cinema is largely unexplored, while investigating how sexuality is constitutive to national identity.
As an interdisciplinary research that bridges art, activism, and political engagement, this project is expected to contribute new knowledge on Indonesian cultural producers and enrich the fields of cinema studies, gender and sexuality studies, and media anthropology.