Thu, 24 April 2014, 7.30pm
Sun, 4 May 2014, 1.30pm
The Act of Killing (Director's Cut), Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, co-directed by Christine Cynn and Anonymous, 2012, Denmark, United Kingdom, Norway, 159 mins, Bahasa Indonesia with English subtitles, NC16 (Mature Theme)
Asian Premiere
What happens when perpetrators of crimes against humanity remain national heroes in their country? When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, erstwhile small-time gangsters and cinema ticket scalpers like Anwar Congo and his friends were promoted to death squad leaders. In less than a year, they helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals. In their exploration of mankind's capacity for violence, the directors invited these men to recreate the killings in form of the kinds of films they watched during their days of violence, including gangster flicks, westerns and musicals. As they play themselves as well as their victims, the film sets become spaces to challenge them about their acts of killing, presenting tense moments in which some realise that the deaths were wrong, while others cling to these crimes as the basis for their current power. For Anwar, an unexpected emotional journey ensues. This film won the BAFTA, Asia Pacific Screen Award and European Film Award in the categories of Best Documentary Film.
Joshua Oppenheimer has worked for over a decade with militias, death squads and their victims to explore the relationship between political violence and the public imagination. Educated at Harvard and Central St Martins, London, his award-winning films include The Globalisation Tapes (2003, co-directed with Christine Cynn), The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase (1998, Gold Hugo, Chicago Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival), These Places We've Learned to Call Home (1996, Gold Spire, San Francisco Film Festival) and numerous shorts. Oppenheimer is Senior Researcher on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's Genocide and Genre project and has published on these themes.
Christine Cynn has been directing documentary and experimental films for the past 14 years. Educated at Harvard and the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to Uganda, she co-directed The Globalisation Tapes (2003) with Joshua Oppenheimer. She has written screenplays for FilmFour and was a founding member of the Vision Machine Film Project in London. She was a researcher on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's Genocide and Genre project. Cynn is currently developing a project, Science Future, combining documentary with fiction, about how scientists imagine the future.
Anonymous (Co-Director and many others): Due to the nature of this film—its subject matter, production methods and the context in which it has been made—it has become necessary to credit numerous Indonesian partners and collaborators, working across all aspects of the film (from Co-Direction and Cinematography to Sound Recording, Production Management, Make Up, Music, Choreography and Technical Support) as Anonymous. They are credited here to recognise their commitment to the project and tireless courage in bringing the stories the film tells to a wider audience.
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