In this multi-award winning companion piece to The Act of Killing, filmed before its release, Joshua Oppenheimer further explores the terrible legacy of the Indonesian genocide fifty years ago, this time through the lens of one family.
Adi was born in 1968, two years after his brother Ramli was slaughtered in front of many eyewitnesses. Now an optometrist, Adi lives with his elderly parents and his children. Not only does he live under the ongoing rule of his brother’s killers, but he must listen to his children regurgitate the propaganda that instigated the killing, and is still being perpetuated in schools.
Adi decides to confront some of the perpetrators of the genocide, who are surprised when his questions are more probing than Oppenheimer‘s. His breaking of the silence leads to some electrifying scenes, in a film where the beauty of the Indonesian landscape belies the bone-chilling horrors carried out there in the name of democracy.
Radically different to Oppenheimer’s previous film, The Look of Silence is equally shocking and keenly observed. Filmed in his characteristic visual style, the film bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.
“One of the greatest and most powerful documentaries ever made. A profound comment on the human condition.” – Errol Morris
“Profound, visionary, stunning.” – Werner Herzog
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen
Year: 2014
Runtime: 103′
Distributor: Dogwoof UK
www.thelookofsilence.co.uk
Creating provocative theatre carries great personal risks: emotional, financial and artistic. In Belarus, there are additional risks: censorship, imprisonment, and the fear of worse.
Belarus is governed by Europe’s last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. In the run-up to the 2010 presidential election and for a year afterwards, filmmaker Madeleine Sackler followed the trials and tribulations of the Belarus Free Theatre, an underground theatre company based in Minsk and led by Natalia and Nikolai.
The elections were followed by demonstrations. Although the protests were violently crushed, it marked the start of a tumultuous year of unrest, fear, arrests and intimidation. The Belarus Free Theatre decided to move abroad and use theatre to draw attention to the situation in Belarus. Sackler followed their rehearsals, their emotional conversations with the home front, and their successful performances.
Some of the actors are still in exile, but others are continuing to make underground theatre in Belarus, in the hope that someday things will change.
Directed by Madeleine Sackler
Duration: 76′
Year: 2013
This screening is in partnership with Dogwoof
Unique, uplifting and heartbreaking, The Network tells the story of Afghanistan’s first independent television network – TOLO TV – and the people behind it. TOLO TV has grown to be Afghanistan’s largest and most successful television network, employing over 800 Afghans producing news, current affairs, drama, comedy, music, and lifestyle programmes.
As the country faces the impending withdrawal of foreign troops, and with security rapidly deteriorating, the team behind TOLO TV are set to face their biggest challenge yet.
In The Network director Eva Orner gives an insight into the daily life at the tv-station and the learning process they face in these challenging circumstances. Through extensive interviews with managers, producers, on-air hosts and others involved with operations, Orner artfully portrays television as a form of entertainment, education and an agent of change.
Directed by Eva Orner
Duration: 97′
Year: 2013
This screening is in partnership with Dogwoof
In 2007, billionaires David and Jackie Siegel started building their new home: a mansion in the style of Versailles, complete with sushi bar, bowling alley and Louis XIV antiques. It was set to become the largest residence in the United States.
With the epic dimensions of a Shakespearean tragedy, The Queen of Versailles began as a documentary chronicling the excesses of America’s super-rich, but when in 2008 the global recession hit it became a disastrous riches to rags story.
Director Lauren Greenfield instinctively knows what questions to ask, when to ask them, and, more importantly, where to put her camera to mine this overflowing treasure of events. She paints a portrait of a couple who dared to dream big and lost, and through them explores the innate virtues and flaws of the American dream.
Directed by Lauren Greenfield
Duration: 100′
Year: 2012
“A meditation on marriage and a metaphor for the fragility of fortunes, big and small.” – The Economist
“The loss of grotesque wealth has never been so entertaining – or weirdly moving – as in this riches-to-rags documentary” – The Guardian
“Lauren Greenfield’s documentary opens into a riveting American tragicomedy” – The Independent
This screening is in partnership with:
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American evangelicals have dubbed Uganda, a country with a 40 percent Roman Catholic population, ground zero in their war on the homosexual agenda. Inspired by the American evangelicals a new anti-homosexuality bill proposing death for HIV-positive gay men and prison for anyone who fails to turn in a known homosexual awaits debate in the Uganan Parliament.
Call Me Kuchu documents the courageous efforts of Uganda’s first openly gay man, David Kato and his team to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Kato fights to repeal Uganda’s homophobic laws and liberate his fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men and women, also known as kuchu’s. One year into filming and just three weeks after a landmark legal victory, on January 26, 2011, the unthinkable happens: Kato is brutally murdered in his home.
With unprecedented access, Call Me Kuchu depicts the last year in the life of this courageous, quick-witted and steadfast man. The film examines the astounding courage and determination required to battle an oppressive government, a vicious media and a powerful church in the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.
Directed by Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Duration: 87
Year: 2012
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What will a big corporation do in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredik Gertten personally experienced how far one was prepared to go in the aftermath of releasing his previous film Bananas!*. That first documentary follows the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company. Just before Gertten left Sweden to attend the world premier of his film at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, the film is mysteriously removed from competition.
]]>What will a big corporation do in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten personally experienced how far one was prepared to go in the aftermath of releasing his previous film Bananas!*. That first documentary follows the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company. Just before Gertten left Sweden to attend the world premier of his film at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, the film is mysteriously removed from competition.
Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is about what happened next, Gertten captured the entire process of corporate bullying and media spin – from Dole attacking the producers with a defamation lawsuit, to media-control and PR-spin. It is a personal story documenting what happened to Gertten and his company as well as how the livelihood of documentary filmmakers can be easily put into jeopardy. This powerful film reveals precisely how a multinational will stop at nothing to get its way – freedom of speech is at stake.
The screening at Curzon Soho will be followed by a Q&A with director Fredrik Gertten. Tim Burt, Managing Director of StockWell, which he joined from Brunswick, the international advisory firm, where he oversaw sectors including media, technology and automotive will also be present.
Director: Fredrik Gertten
Duration: 90′
Year: 2011
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After bringing democracy to the Maldives following thirty years of despotic rule, Nasheed is now faced with an even greater challenge: as one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1,200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable.
]]>The Island President tells the story of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives’ battle for the survival of his country and everyone in it.
As one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1,200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable.
The Island President chronicles Nasheed’s first year of office, culminating in his trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, providing a rare glimpse of the political horse-trading that takes place.
Directed by: Jon Shenk
Duration: 101′
Year: 2011
Position Among the Stars completes director Leonard Retel Helmrich‘s multi award-winning trilogy capturing complexities of religion, politics, and now economics, following the lives of one family in a Jakarta slum.
Helmrich follows Tari, the only educated child of the family, as she struggles with the impulses of becoming a teenager with their expectations of her as their hope for a better future.
Filmed over 12 years using Helmich’s own ingenious technique dubbed "single-shot cinema", each of the three films – Eye of the Day, Shape of the Moon and Position Among the Stars – stands alone in its message and time, while providing both a microscopic look into the changing Indonesian life and into globalisation.
Position Among the Stars will be released in UK theatres on 17 February.
**Winner, Sundance World Cinema Special Jury prize – Best Documentary 2011**
**Winner, IDFA Award – Best Feature-Length Documentary 2010**
Directed by: Leonard Retel Helmrich
Year: 2010
Length: 115′
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