Event info

The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer

USA/Indonesia 2015

103 min

The Look of Silence is a follow-up to one of the most powerful documentaries of the 21. century, The Act of Killing. There director Joshua Oppenheimer took a surreal look at the government-sanctioned mass murder of "communists" in 1960s Indonesia through the eyes of the former paramilitaries who performed the killings. Here Oppenheimer focuses on the victims' perspective. The film's central figure is Adi, a village optometrist whose brother fell at the hands of paramilitaries during the purges. He travels to nearby villages where the killers live in luxury to conduct eye exams on them. During the examinations he questions them about their memories and motives and the perpetrators' responses more often than not send a chill though one's spine. Exquisitely crafted and morally complex, this film is a guaranteed must-see.

Joshua Oppenheimer was born in 1974 in Austin, Texas. He studied filmmaking at Harvard University and later at The University of the Arts in London. His directorial debut, THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE, was released in 1997. Between 2004 and 2012 he spent most of his time researching, recording and producing films in Indonesia. He became intrigued with history and social implications of the mass-killings of supposed communists in 1960s Indonesia and did extensive research on the subject before releasing his tour-de-force THE ACT OF KILLING in 2012. The film won multiple awards at film festivals as well as an Oscar nomination. Oppenheimer is the 2014 recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award.