Prima Rusdi

Prima Rusdi (born 31 January 1967) is an Indonesian screenwriter and writer. [ [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1221686/ Prima Rusdi ] ]

Rusdi was born in Göttingen, Germany and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has a Master's degree in Communications from University of Canberra (Australia), and initially wanted to become a journalist. She began her career as a writer in 2000 after quitting her job as a copywriter with a multinational advertising agency. She won several top advertising awards during her career as a copywriter. She co-wrote her first film "Eliana, Eliana" (2002) with director Riri Riza during which she also co-wrote "What's Up with Love?" (2001) with Jujur Prananto. In 2004, Rusdi won two awards from Festival Film Indonesia for "Eliana, Eliana" (shared with director Riri Riza) and for a teleplay called "The Big Celebration". Both "Eliana" and "The Big Celebration" were produced by Miles Films, a production house that Prima considers as her 'film school'. In 2005 she co-wrote "Waking Banyu" with writer Rayya Makarim, and in 2006 she wrote "Garasi", a coming-of-age film produced by "What's with Love" producer, Mira Lesmana. "Garasi" is a directorial debut from Agung Sentausa, a close friend of Prima's who also received his film training from Miles Films.

Throughout 2006, Rusdi was one of the mentors for a series of film workshops conducted for students/teenagers, including a group of young detainees at a juvenille correctional center located in Jakarta. She wrote a screenplay for a short film directed by Lasja Fauzia called "(Almost) A Mischance", and is distributed by a Singaporean distribution company that leads the short film to circle the international festivals. She also worked with Malaysian stage director/writer Ann Lee adapting Lee's script, "Hang Li Poh" into Indonesian (this project is still in progress but a chapter that has been adapted were being performed during The International Women Playwrights Conferense, November 2006). Later that year, Prima Rusdi was one of the programmers (alongside short filmmaker Farishad Latjuba, documentary filmmaker Alex Sihar, and artist Ade Darmawan) for the first Southeast Asian Short Film Competitions held in Jakarta. She was nominated at Festival Film Indonesia 2006 for her screenplay "Garasi".

In January 2007, Prima Rusdi, along with about 300 filmmakers including Mira Lesmana, Riri Riza, Nia Dinata, returned their awards from the Festival Film Indonesia (a long running government funded film festival) to the Minister of Arts and Culture as a mark to protest the Indonesian government for the lack of support and transparency and a series of restrictive policies those are still applied and affected the Indonesian film industry. This movement is known as MFI (Masyarakat Film Indonesia) or Indonesian Film Society Movement. Later that year she served as a jury member chaired by British producer Jan Harlan (a long time collabolator Stanley Kubrick's), at the 2007 International Film Festival at Bratislava, Slovakia. Other members were director Royston Tan (Singapore), actress Klara Issova (Czech Republic) and screenwriter Zuzana Liova (Slovak Republic).

Prima Rusdi also writes short stories and articles in various publications. She was a contributor for CosmoGirl! Indonesia between 2002-2004. In 2005, she had her first book, "The Journey", published by Terrant Books. Her second book, "1095 Magical Days" was published by KATAKITA in 2006. Prima has her third book published by Gramedia in 2007. The book titled "Bikin Film kata 40 Pekerja Film" or "(Indonesian) Films According to 40 Indonesian Filmmakers"." She is currently in the process of completing some scripts.

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