Racial Discrimination, School Violence, and Intergenerational Trauma in Indonesian Cinema: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Pengepungan di Bukit Duri

Persistent racial discrimination, school violence, and unresolved historical trauma remain urgent social problems in Indonesia, yet they are often normalized through everyday language and institutional silence. This study aims to examine how these issues are discursively constructed and contested in the film Pengepungan di Bukit Duri. Using a qualitative approach grounded in Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, the research analyzes the film across three analytical dimensions: textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice, drawing on selected scenes, dialogues, visual compositions, and contextual production–reception data. The results identify four dominant discourses: racialized othering, normalized school-based violence, institutional failure, and intergenerational trauma, which are consistently articulated through recurring linguistic patterns, visual framing, and narrative structures. The analysis further shows that schools function as sites of ideological reproduction, while audience reception on digital platforms extends the film’s discourse into broader public debate. In conclusion, Pengepungan di Bukit Duri operates not merely as a representational text but as a transformative cultural discourse that challenges normalized injustice and invites critical reflection on race, education, and social responsibility in contemporary Indonesia.