The filmmaker as activist

ABSTRACT

This study is focused on those filmmakers who make films as a way of fighting to defend human rights. I look in particular in this article at their activist role in the process of documenting human rights abuses in contemporary film projects that explore the aftermath of genocide. In Asia, we can find two examples: the anticommunist genocide in Indonesia in 1965–66 and the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in 1975–79. Two contemporary filmmakers have produced works that recover the history of the atrocities: Joshua Oppenheimer and Rithy Panh. Traditionally, filmmakers have formed relationships only with victims; however, this article shows how the involvement of the perpetrators is also necessary to fully understand the conflict. This article explores why filmmakers decide to engage with the perpetrators, how they get them to participate, and what the consequences of this process may be. Since Oppenheimer’s involvement with his protagonist, Anwar Congo, in The Act of Killing (2012) turns out especially problematic, exploring this relationship in depth is the central purpose of this article.