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Jason Russell (born October 12, 1978) is an American film and theater director, choreographer, and activist who co-founded Invisible Children, Inc. He is the director of Kony 2012, a short documentary film that went Viral video in the beginning of March 2012. In the first two weeks following its release, the documentary gained more than 83 million views on YouTube and became the subject of media scrutiny and criticism. Its subject is the Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony, his alleged war crimes, and the movement to bring him to the International Criminal Court.
Russell graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
After Russell's group reached the Sudan their caravan was attacked by the Lord's Resistance Army, forcing a retreat to Northern Uganda. In Gulu, Russell and the others interviewed and videotaped children who had to commute to the city every night to elude raids by the LRA on their home villages in Acholiland. During filming, the three men contracted malaria, but omitted covering their illness so that the documentary would remain focused on the children. The footage they shot resulted in the original Invisible Children documentary draft, which was first screened in June 2004.
Russell and others returned to Uganda for six months in 2005 to collect more interviews and documentation for the next Invisible Children documentary. In 2006, after the Washington D.C. screening of Russell and Poole's rough cut, the U.S. Congress approved discussion of the plight of the Acholi before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. The 2006 also won Russell, Bailey, and Poole the Pioneering Spirit Award at the 2007 Heartland Film Festival.
With his wife Danica Jones and Jon M. Chu, Russell co-wrote a musical, Moxie, which the team sold to Steven Spielberg.Nicole Urso, "Dance Fever", Los Angeles Magazine, December 2003, page 94-100
Russell has a sister, Amy, who is married to actor Ryan Hansen.
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