Indonesia
Before, Now & Then is a film that dares to ask this question and forces us to wrestle with the painful truth at the core of the answer.
Impetigore is a film of slowly unfolding horror, with every aspect designed to fill you with dread and sorrow.
Film Inquiry’s Samantha Celentano talked to Yoshi Sudarso about Buffalo Boys, and the rarity of seeing Asian-American cowboys on the big screen.
With Buffalo Boys, Wiluan succeeds in his mission of taking an important piece of his people’s history and rendering it into an entertaining film with international appeal.
If you’re a fan or a newbie or just someone looking for a bloodbath of an action movie, move The Night Comes for Us to the very, very top of your list.
Headshot is a bit too melodramatic and tries to emulate The Raid sequels too blatantly, yet it is just enough to satisfy action junkies.
Delivering a much-needed scissor kick to action cinema, Gareth Evans is a director who already has had a major influence in mainstream action filmmaking. Born in Wales, he graduated from the University of South Wales with a Master of Arts in screenwriting. With this knowledge in tow, he directed the independently-budgeted kitchen sink-noir film Footsteps, which didn’t lead to much work.
The Look of Silence, the harrowing companion piece to The Act of Killing, was released earlier this year to universal acclaim. With the film about to be released on streaming platforms in the US, with a ton of awards nominations heading its way (including a place in the shortlist for Best Documentary at the Oscars this year), Film Inquiry spoke to director Joshua Oppenheimer about the past decade in his life making these films, as well as the new form of documentary storytelling he has pioneered. Alistair Ryder for Film Inquiry:
Ignorance truly is bliss. Before watching Joshua Oppenheimer’s harrowing 2012 documentary The Act of Killing, I had no knowledge of the 1965-1966 genocide in Indonesia, which was initially intended on purging “communists” from Indonesian society, but resulted in a million innocent people being massacred. That I could have no awareness of the subject could be blamed on western ignorance – upon receiving the BAFTA for best documentary, Oppenheimer claimed that the UK and US were partly responsible for these atrocities to happen due to their insistence on destroying communism at any cost (a statement that was naturally cut out of the TV broadcast).