What happens when the man who committed a mass genocide gets the chance to be a movie star?

AN INTIMATE DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE NATURE OF EVIL ITSELF

This film is beautiful, twisted, and intense. Come watch, learn, and discuss in our downstairs gallery. We will begin promptly at 8PM

"I'm trying to understand how do we tell lies to ourselves to justify what we've done and what are the consequences of those lies? But actually maybe I also recognize that in turning empathy into a practice for many years, by turning, by forcing myself to separate at some level the humanity of a human being from his or her actions and recognizing that sometimes, even the moral aspects of a human being can contribute to immoral behavior."
- Joshua Oppenheimer, Director

The Act of Killing (2012) 2h 46m


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" Medan, Indonesia. When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gangsters who sold movie theatre tickets on the black market to death squad leaders. They helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, and intellectuals in less than a year. As the executioner for the most notorious death squad in his city, a man named Anwar killed hundreds of people with his own hands.

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."