The Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFF) was founded in early 1999, soon after the demise of the 32 year reign of Suharto in Indonesia. With the easing of the Ministry of Information's restrictions on media, Shanty Harmayn, a producer, and Natacha Devillers, a distributor, launched a film festival to showcase national and international cinema that had never before been shown in Indonesia.

Ever since the fall of Suharto, few filmmakers in Indonesia have been able to address the issues of human rights, social change, propaganda, and globalization. Political and social cinema remain new forms in Indonesia, as media is still perceived primarily as a form of entertainment; broad social topics have rarely been examined critically within the Indonesian context.

This special showcase from the 2001 JIFF emphasizes cinema that explores questions of history, human rights, and identity. Produced by Indonesians as well as Americans and Australians, these films offer a variety of perspectives on these issues.

Veteran director Garin Nugroho and the documentary filmmaker Aryo Danusiri examine the grim events in Aceh, in northern Sumatra. Many wonder whether Aceh will become the next Timor, as the seeds of conflict, deeply planted during the Dutch colonization of Indonesia several centuries ago, continue to take root. Nugroho's A Poet, about the political prisoner and poet Ibrahim Kadir, is a metaphor for the Acehnese conflict as expressed in the poems and songs of didong, the traditional form of poetry in central Aceh. The Poet of Linge Homeland, a companion piece to the feature film, is a poignant portrait of Kadir. Danusiri's The Village Goat that Takes the Beating is a chilling testament by survivors of torture inflicted by the Indonesian special armed forces, or TNI, during the past several years. In The Little Gayo Singer (Cek Kucah Gayo), Nan Achnas looks at the singing traditions of Aceh through the portrait of a young singer as he prepares for a lively but rigorous competition. Australian filmmaker Tom Zubrycki presents an international festival favorite, The Diplomat, which looks at the explosive events surrounding the struggle for independence in East Timor and how they played out on the international diplomatic stage. Festival namesake Margaret Mead conducted fieldwork and produced some of the earliest documentary films in Indonesia in the 1930s; this program will include a presentation and discussion of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson's Trance and Dance in Bali and Bathing Babies in Three Cultures.

— Natacha Devillers and Shanty Harmayn Co-founders and Directors of the Jakarta International Film Festival