The Act of Killing

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Denmark, Norway, UK | Indonesian, Javanese
2012 | 159min | Colour
Subtitles: English
Friday, Nov 6 Club House, 12:45 PM

When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, more than one million people were killed in less than a year. Anwar and his friends were promoted from ticket scalpers to death squad leaders, and Anwar killed hundreds of people with his own hands. In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends agree to tell us the story of the killings. But their idea of being in a movie is not to provide testimony for a documentary: they want to be stars in their favourite film genres – gangster, western, musical. They write the scripts. They play themselves. And they play their victims. The Act of Killing is a nightmarish vision – a journey into the memories and imaginations of the unrepentant perpetrators and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit.

Joshua Oppenheimer

Born in 1974, USA, Joshua Oppenheimer is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he is a partner at the production company Final Cut for Real. 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 Saint Martins, his debut feature-length film is The Act of Killing (2012). His earlier works include The Globalisation Tapes (2002, produced with Christine Cynn), The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase (1998), These Places We’ve Learned to Call Home (1996), and other shorts. Oppenheimer is artistic director of the International Centre for Documentary and Experimental Film, University of Westminster.

Credits

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Co-Directors: Anonymous, Christine Cynn
Producers: Signe Byrge Sørensen, Joram ten Brink, Anonymous, Christine Cynn, Anne Köhncke, Joshua Oppenheimer, Michael Uwemedimo
Cinematographers: Carlos Arango de Montis, Lars Skree, Anonymous
Editors: Niels Pagh Andersen, Janus Billeskov Jansen, Mariko Montpetit, Ariadna Fatjo-Vilas Mestre, Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, Erik Andersson
Sound: Gunn Tove Grønsberg, Henrik Gugge Garnov
Music: Elin Øyen Vister
Production Companies: Final Cut for Real, Piraya Film, Novaya Zemlya Ltd
Cast: Anwar Congo, Herman Koto, Syamsul Arifin, Ibrahim Sinik, Yapto Soerjosoemarno, Safit Pardede, Jusuf Kalla, Adi Zulkadry, Soaduon Siregar, Haji Marzuki, Sakhyan Asmara

Festival Appearances & Awards

CPH:DOX 2012 – Grand Prize (DOX Award) 
Berlin International Film Festival 2013 – Panorama Audience Award, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
!F Istanbul 2013- Prize of the SIYAD jury (Turkish Film Critics’ Association)
FICUNAM, Mexico 2013 – Audience Award
One World Film Festival, Prague 2013 – Best Film
IndieLisboa 2013 – Amnesty International Award
Planete + Doc Warsaw 2013 – Audience Award, Grand Prix of Lower Silesia
DocsBarcelona 2013 – Best Film Award (Grand Prize)
Sheffield Doc/Fest 2013 – Grand Prize, Audience Award
Human Rights, Human Dignity International Film Festival Myanmar – Aung San Suu Kyi Award for Best Documentary  
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2013 – Mayor’s Prize
Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife, Brazil 2013 – Best Film
Karama Human Rights Film Festival, Jordan 2013 – Best Feature Documentary