The Act of Killing has just been nominated for an Academy Award. Congrats to Joshua Oppenheimer and the entire crew. I am reposting the following message that came to me from Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing. I write about the film for Guernica here. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Indonesia
Down and Out by the Arau River
On the bridge to the north of an old Padang hotel, a group of vendors sell early evening snacks of sweet corn and roast banana. The corn is grilled over charcoal until the tops of the kernels turn dusty black. Then the vendor hands the ear to her assistant (sous chef?) and she drenches it fast in a drying salt water and a whisk or two more of butter. The results are glorious and crunchy.
130 Years of Krakatoa
A hundred and thirty years ago this month Indonesia’s Krakatoa volcano erupted, sending plumes of ash so high it discolored the horizon in San Francisco. The explosion killed nearly 40,000 people and dispatched pumice as far away as Zanzibar. The boom is reported to have been the loudest sound ever heard in modern history. Via The Jakarta Post, read more
The Act of Seeing The Act of Killing
A new doc on Indonesia’s 1965-66 anti-communist genocide takes the international film festival circuit by storm. But in the country that most needs to see it, the film is underground, its crew largely anonymous. Via Guernica, read more
“Dear Anonymous,”
It’s not every day you write an email that starts “Dear Anonymous” and I am honored to have done so today. Continuing to report more on local responses to the groundbreaking new documentary, The Act of Killing. To follow is my note to Anonymous, the silent co-director who worked alongside Joshua Oppenheimer.
Last question: Are you okay? So simple yet so serious.
Anonymous
I am currently reporting a story on the Indonesian response to the astonishing new film, The Act of Killing. Director Joshua Oppenheimer worked on the film for nearly a decade and has called this work, “a documentary of the imagination.”
Lombok, I love you
A little piece from Lombok, Indonesia back when Bali was reeling from terrorist attacks and the local economies of the surrounding islands were just beginning to take off. Via That’s Beijing, read more
The Missing
After 30 years of war and the 2004 tsunami, many women in Aceh have been left widowed. What will peacetime, and the increasing imposition of Islamic law, mean for their futures? Via Tank Magazine, read more
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded
“The volcanoes that are truly dangerous are those that don’t erupt,” Winchester explained. “The largest of this nature is in Yellowstone Natural Park in the United States. Everything else will pale in comparison when that erupts.” By that time, however, human life is expected to have long gone extinct. Via The Jakarta Post, read more
Caroline M Cooper 