The Berlin International Film Festival has invited Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary "The Act of Killing" to the Panorama section in the the festival's 2013 edition.
Directed by Texas born Joshua Oppenheimer, "The Act of Killing" ventures deep into the minds of former Indonesian death squad leaders who are challenged to reenact their real-life mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of mass-murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit.
"The Act of Killing" is directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and co-directed by Christine Cynn and Anonymous. The film is produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen from Final Cut for Real with support from the Danish Film Institute. International sales are handled by Cinephil.
The film created a stir at this year’s Toronto and Telluride International Film Festival in September and won the DOX:AWARD at the Danish documentary festival CPH:DOX in November.
"The Act of Killing" will have its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.
Read interview with the film's producer Signe Byrge Sørensen Deconstructing a Genocide
Also selected for Panorama is Danish director Mahdi Fleifel's British-Lebanese production "A World Not Ours". Read interview