With The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer took a big risk. In order to tell the story of the genocide of over a million putative Communists in Indonesia following the military coup of 1965 – a story that the victims and their descendants still don’t dare to tell – he decided that the only possibility was to speak to the murderers, who testify proudly and free of regret, and are only too happy to re-enact their deeds for the camera. Oppenheimer’s award-winning work is a documentary film so intense and real that it sometimes has a surprisingly comic and almost queer effect; a filmic fever dream that descends into the collective unconscious and blurs the lines between fiction and reality.
Sat April 18th, 1:00pm
Artist Talk after the screening
Kaserne Basel, Rossstall
In indonesian language with German Subtitles
Duration: 159 min
Price: 10 CHF
USA/Denmark
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Co-Director: Christine Cynn, Anonymous
Camera: Carlos Arango de Montis ADFC, Lars Skree
Schnitt: Niels Pagh Andersen, Janus Billeskov Jansen, Mariko Montpetit, Charlotte Munch Bengtsen, Ariadna Fatjó-Vilas Mestre
Sound: Gunn Tove Grønsberg, Henrik Gugge Garnov
Music: Elin Øyen Vister
Composition: Karsten Fundal
Production: Signe Byrge Sørensen
Producers: Joram ten Brink, Anne Köhncke, Michael Uwemedimo, Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, Anonymous.
Executing Producers: Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, André Singer, Torstein Grude, Bjarte Mørner Tveit, Joram ten Brink.
Production Company: Final Cut for Real, DK
Co-Producers: Torstein Grude and Bjarte Mørner Tveit, Piraya Film, NOJoshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn, Novaya Zemlya, UK