Many were surprised earlier this month when Joshua Oppenheimer’s bloodsoaked documentary on Indonesia’s massacres of 50 years ago lost Best Documentary to a feature on people who sing backup vocals.
Tomorrow, Oppenheimer will be on hand at a screening his BAFTA-winning film produced by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.
The film has its share of fans and critics. Some have called it tasteless for employing the men responsible for the massacre to re-enact their atrocities.
The screening starts at 7pm, and there is a THB350 fee for nonmembers. Dinner will be served for an additional THB350, but reservations are necessary to eat. Otherwise the fine bar is well-stocked and attended, as always.
FIND IT:
Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand
Watch the official trailer.
View the official film website here.
Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing, will be at the FCCT in person during the screening of this film and will give a talk following the film.
Synopsis
Anwar Congo and his friends have been dancing their way through musical numbers, twisting arms in film noir gangster scenes, and galloping across prairies as yodelling cowboys. Their foray into filmmaking is being celebrated in the media and debated on television, even though Anwar Congo and his friends are mass murderers.
Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar Congo and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders.
Today, Anwar is revered as a founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, and they are happy to boast about everything from corruption and election rigging to acts of genocide.
The Act of Killing is about killers who have won, and the sort of society they have built. Unlike ageing Nazis or Rwandan génocidaires, Anwar and his friends have not been forced by history to admit they participated in crimes against humanity. Instead, they have written their own triumphant history, becoming role models for millions of young paramilitaries. The Act of Killing is a journey into the memories and imaginations of the perpetrators, offering insight into the minds of mass killers. And The Act of Killing is a nightmarish vision of a frighteningly banal culture of impunity in which killers can joke about crimes against humanity on television chat shows, and celebrate moral disaster with the ease and grace of a soft shoe dance number.
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 star in the kind of films they most love from their days scalping tickets at the cinemas. We seize this opportunity to expose how a regime that was founded on crimes against humanity, yet has never been held accountable, would project itself into history.
Pricing Details:
Members: No cover charge, buffet dinner is 350 baht
Cover charge for non-members: 350 Baht, Buffet dinner: 350 Baht, for members and non-members alike.
Reservations: To ensure sufficient food for the buffet, we would greatly appreciate your making a buffet reservation at least one day before the program if you plan to join us for the dinner. (No penalty for cancellation if last minute conflicts arise.) Please also note that tables/seats will be reserved only for those with advance buffet bookings. To reserve, please call 02-652-0580-1 or click here to send an e-mail to info@fccthai.com .
