This is a documentary film about the Indonesian killings of 1965/66. It is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn in collaboration with an anonymous Indonesian.
The response of the Indonesian government to this documentary was mostly negative. The Indonesian presidential spokesman on foreign affairs, Teuku Faizasyah, said that the documentary is misleading when it comes to the portrayal of Indonesia.
The story revolves around theanti-communist purge in which more than 500,000 people were killed. At this time, Sukarno, the President of Indonesia was overthrown by would be President Suharto. The forming of the death squad followed and it`s prominent members were gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry.
It is said that this was the most powerful squad in North Sumatra. They extorted money from ethnic Chinese as the price for keeping their lives. Anwar is said to have personally killed 1,000 people by methods such as strangulation with wire.
A sequel of this documentary titled ‘The Look of Silence’ is scheduled to be released in 2015.
