To put it crudely, 'The Act of Killing' would blast open the space for the more delicate film, 'The Look of Silence,' to do its work.
From Joshua Oppenheimer
I wanted to resist in 'The Look of Silence' making a film that ends with any kind of positive hope I feel in human rights documentaries dealing with human survivors.
Films can't change the society; they can simply open the space for the discussion which can lead to social change and can start new forms of social activism.
I still receive very regular death threats that make it impossible for me to return to Indonesia. I think I could get in, but I don't think I could get out again.
I came across the Indonesian genocide in 2001, when I found myself making a film in a community of survivors. They were plantation workers, and it turned out they were struggling to organize a union.
My background is in filmmaking, and my mentor is Dusan Makavejev, who combined fiction and documentary.
What I've always been most interested in is exposing the way stories and fantasies reconstitute our everyday reality. What appears to be non-fiction is not only totally mysterious, unfathomable, and strange when you really look at what it is.
My first memory of cinema is my mother taking me to see 'Silkwood,' which is about a whistleblower at a nuclear power plant.
I'm against escapist entertainment.
I don't like to eat when I watch films because it distracts me. Anything crunchy or in a wrapper is terrible.
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