Melarissa Benedicta Sjarief is doing an MA program in screenwriting at the Los Angeles branch of the New York Film Academy. She hopes to do a thesis on Indonesian local cultures, that incorporates issues of gender and racial equality.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Petra Christian University, Surabaya, in 2013, after which she worked as an assistant producer at a local TV station and a producer for a video production team at an online media company.