Rodd Rathjen is a writer-director raised in central Victoria, Australia. Rathjen completed a Bachelor of Film and Television with Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts. He made short film The Stranger in 2011, but his breakthrough came with the 2013 short film Tau Seru in India about a young nomad in the Himalayas, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and Rathjen was nominated for the Discovery Award. The film screened at over 50 International festivals and received numerous awards including the AACTA for Best Short Film Award. He followed this with Sweat in 2015 starring Australian screen legend Colin Friels. In 2014 Rodd received the Directors Acclaim Fund from Screen Australia and participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus as a Director. Buoyancy is Rathjen’s feature film debut and his first APSA nomination for Best Youth Feature Film and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
