The Act of Killing
Director:
Joshua Oppenheimer
When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged enemies of the new regime. In The Act of Killing, Anwar and his friends agree to tell 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.
Awards
Panorama Audience Award, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Berlin 2013, Turkish Film Critics' Association - Istanbul 2013
