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Indonesians who helped make films about killings face safety fears
New York Times - July 15, 2015
The first film showed perpetrators of Indonesia's massacres, which began in 1965 and left hundreds of thousands dead, not only proudly re-enacting the gruesome killings but also living with impunity and enjoying power, even fame. "The Look of Silence," opening on Friday in New York, offers a glimpse into the agony and discrimination borne by the victims' kin by following a gentle optician, Adi Rukun, whose brother was killed in that purge, as he quietly confronts the killers and their leaders.
The filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer had planned to gather stories from victims' families for a documentary more than a decade ago, but less than a month into the interviews, his subjects received threats. Instead, Mr. Oppenheimer made "The Act of Killing," and, anticipating repercussions, shot "The Look of Silence" before the first film was released. He then left Indonesia, and, upon advice from human rights experts, has no plans to return. Eleven years ago, a prominent Indonesian human rights activist was fatally poisoned, and abuses continue.
All of which raises questions about whether Mr. Rukun, his family and the films' dozens of anonymous crew members, all Indonesians still living in their homeland, remain safe.
"We tried to get a picture of what kind of danger or threat we might have to face," said a crew member who anonymously shares directing credits on both films. "It ends up in lots of 'we don't know.' It is not clear whether we face a danger or not. It is more worrying."
The crew member was speaking through Skype, the video disabled, from the home he shares with his family on Java, Indonesia's most populous island. He still takes precautions to shield his identity. He never ventures to North Sumatra, 1,000 miles away, where both documentaries were filmed, and steers clear of screenings and in-person interviews as well as any place where the paramilitary might surface.
Protecting Mr. Rukun – who could not be reached for an interview – and his family from potential harm was another matter. Six months before "The Look of Silence" was released, Mr. Oppenheimer and his crew met the Rukun family in Thailand to discuss how to keep them safe. There was talk of moving them to Europe for a few years, but the Rukuns did not want to leave Indonesia. Mr. Oppenheimer suggested delaying the film's release until the perpetrators had died. "The family said, 'This needs to come out now,'" Mr. Oppenheimer recalled.
The Rukuns opted to move hundreds of miles from North Sumatra to an undisclosed location in the country, where, Mr. Oppenheimer said, human rights lawyers and activists live around them in a protective huddle, on high alert for any hints of intimidation or threats. (The True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Mo., helped raise $35,000 for Adi Rukun to open an optometry shop.) So far, Mr. Oppenheimer said, no threats have come.
Part of the reason might be the rapturous reception that met the "The Look of Silence" in a country where up until a year and a half ago, official denial about the massacres seemed unshakable. "The Act of Killing" had had an underground release in the country, via closed screenings. Publicly mentioning the film carried risk; a newspaper editor was physically attacked for writing about it and naming the Pancasila Youth, the paramilitary group that led the killings.
The Oscar nomination, however, gave "The Act of Killing" validation and moral heft, paving the way for the very public Indonesian premiere in November of "The Look of Silence," which was advertised on Jakarta billboards and drew thousands. When Mr. Rukun showed up unannounced afterward, the crowds greeted him with a 10-minute standing ovation.
In a way, Mr. Rukun's family tragedy was the catalyst for both films. Mr. Oppenheimer, an American then living in London (and now in Denmark), first visited Indonesia 14 years ago to help plantation workers dying of a chemical herbicide film their efforts to unionize. After the company hired the Pancasila Youth to menace the workers, Mr. Oppenheimer said, they swiftly dropped their demands. But haltingly, they began telling him of the grisly murders and disappearances that the paramilitary group had carried out decades before. "I realized what was killing my friends was not just poison, but fear," Mr. Oppenheimer said.
The workers also spoke of a man named Ramli, who was among the few victims in the region whose bodies had been found. It was shortly after Mr. Oppenheimer met Ramli's family, the Rukuns, that the army silenced the other survivors, whereupon Adi Rukun, he said, urged him to try to film the perpetrators.
Mr. Oppenheimer began doing so and was dumbfounded by their braggadocio. In 2004, two older former regional paramilitary leaders led him to a river to show, in enthusiastic detail, how they carved up their victims and even drank their blood – an act they believed would stave off insanity. Mr. Oppenheimer said the episode, which appears in "The Look of Silence," was the inspiration for both films.
After watching the raw footage, Mr. Rukun wanted to meet his brother's killers. Mr. Oppenheimer said that he initially refused, citing the obvious dangers, but that Mr. Rukun pressed him. The crew accurately predicted that filming the paramilitary's highest-echelon leaders in the first documentary would provide cover for the second one: The lower-ranking regional members interviewed in "The Look of Silence" believed that Mr. Oppenheimer was friends with their powerful higher-ups.
The aftermath of both films is still unfolding. Aware of their populist appeal, the politician Joko Widodo vowed in his presidential campaign to improve the country's human rights record. He went on to win, although Amnesty International said rampant abuses continued. Major news publications have called for the government to face the past. In March, the film was screened at a military headquarters.
Mr. Oppenheimer said that one reaction he especially treasured came from the filmmaker Werner Herzog, a producer for both films. "He said, 'Joshua, art doesn't make a difference – long pause – until it does.'"
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