Ware Center to Screen THE ACT OF KILLING Doc, 11/25

"The Act of Killing," a film by Joshua Oppenheimer, has shaken film festival audiences around the world, from the Toronto to the Telluride film Festivals. According to the Los Angeles Times the film "could well change how you view the documentary form." The Ware Center presents "The Act of Killing," Monday, November 25 at 5 & 7:30 PM.

In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive producers Errol Morris ("The Fog of War") and Werner Herzog ("Grizzly Man"), allow the filmmaker to examine a country where killers - Indonesian death squad leaders -- are celebrated as heroes. They challenge them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling jour deep into the imaginations of mass murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit.

Anwar Congo and his friends have helped the army kill more than one million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals - IN LESS THAN A YEAR. Anwar himself has killed hundreds of people with his own hands. They have been celebrated in the media, even though Anwar and friends are mass murderers. Today, Anwar is revered as the founding father of a right-wing paramilitary organization that grew out of the death squads. The organization is so powerful that its leaders include government ministers, happy to boast about everything from corruption to acts of genocide.

"The Act of Killing" is about killers who have won and have explicitly fashioned themselves and their methods of murder after their Hollywood models turning into role models for millions of paramilitaries. Here they develop fictional scenes about their experience with the killings. They write scripts, they play themselves, they play the victims. Through the process Anwar goes from arrogance to regret, as he confronts for the first time in his life, the full implications of what he has done.

The film was an official selection in Telluride Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival (Winner Audience Award and Ecumenical Prize), True/False Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Los Angeles film Festival, Human Rights Watch film festival and others.

It is 122 minutes and is unrated, but should be treated as "R". Tickets: $7 | $5 for Students & Seniors. Call 717-872-3811 or online at artsmu.com. This film is shown with English subtitles.

For more information go to: http://theactofkilling.com/. For a preview of the film go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kssnOoJ93I&feature=youtu.be.