The Act of Killing to Toronto

Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary "The Act of Killing", about Indonesian death squad leaders, has been selected for Toronto International Film Festival.

Toronto International Film Festival has selected "The Act of Killing" by Joshua Oppenheimer for the TIFF Docs programme.

Last week, the festival announced that Nikolaj Arcel's historical drama "A Royal Affair" has been selected for a Gala Presentation, and Susanne Bier's romance "Love is All You Need" for a Special Presentation.

The Act of Killing

When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, Anwar and his friends were promoted from small-time gang¬sters 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, Anwar himself killed hundreds of people with his own hands.

In the city of Medan, on the island Sumatra in Indonesia, where killers are celebrated as heroes, the filmmakers challenge unrepentant death squad leaders to dramatise their role in genocide. The result is a surreal, cinematic journey not only into the imaginations of mass-murderers, but also into a frighteningly banal regime of corruption and impunity.

Director Joshua Oppenheimer has worked for over a decade with militias, death squads and their victims to explore the relationship between political violence and the public imagination. Oppenheimer's award-winning films include "The Globalisation Tapes" (2003), "The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase" (1998) and "These Places We've Learned to Call Home" (1996).

Co-directors are Christine Cynn and Anonymous.

The film is produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen from Final Cut for Real ApS. Additional producers are Joram ten Brink, Michael Uwemedimo, Anne Köhncke, Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn.

Executive producers are Errol Morris, André Singer and Joram ten Brink. The film is co-produced by Torstein Grude and Bjarte Mørner Tveit from Piraya Film in Norway, Novaya Zemlya in the UK and produced in association with André Singer from Spring Films Ltd in the UK.

"The Act of Killing" is supported by the Danish Film Institute. The film will have its world premiere at the festival.

Read more about "The Act of Killing" at the film's website www.theactofkilling.com

Toronto International Film Festival

Every year, 300.000 guests attend TIFF, which makes it the leading public film festival in North America.

This year, the festival runs from 6-16 September.

The festival will be announcing more titles over the next weeks.

In addition to the three Danish films "A Royal Affair", "The Hunt" and "The Act of Killing", two Danish minor co-productions are selected for the Special Presentation programme: Norwegian "Kon-tiki", directed by Espen Sandberg and Joachim Rønning and co-produced by Lone Korslund for Nordisk Film, and British "Ginger and Rosa", directed by Sally Potter and co-produced by Jonas Allen and Peter Bose for Miso Film.

Toronto International Film Festival