新澳彩开奖结果

Oscar-nominated director discusses evil and empathy

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When Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of The Act of Killing, spoke in Golden Auditorium last Friday, he described his Oscar-nominated film as a tightrope between empathy and repulsion.

The documentary 鈥 which was shown before Oppenheimer鈥檚 talk 鈥 tells the story of the 1965 genocide in Indonesia from the perspective of the perpetrators. It examines and seeks to expose the act itself, the mindset of the perpetrators, and the filmmaking process.

鈥淭he past 鈥 structures the stories we share in the present and haunts,鈥 said Oppenheimer, who came to 新澳彩开奖结果 from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Joshua Oppenheimer (far right) speaks to the participants of his documentary.

The Act of Killing attempts to shed light on one of the darkest chapters in human history as well as the costs of an inability to control greed and hunger for power. 鈥淭his is not a story only about Indonesia 鈥 it is a story about us all,鈥 Oppenheimer said in his director鈥檚 statement.

Because the killers take ownership of creating a movie within the larger documentary, it 鈥渃reates a sort of fever dream in which we are lost and then get spit back out into the real world at the end,鈥 he said.

Although The Act of Killing lost out on this year鈥檚 Oscar for best documentary, it received the 2013 European Film Award for Best Documentary and the 2013 Asia Pacific Screen Award, among others.

Oppenheimer鈥檚 visit featured two receptions where students and professors met the director and asked questions. He also clarified moments in the film and explained the filmmaking process during a panel discussion with professors and .

Lane, an professor who helped to bring Oppenheimer to campus, reflected: 鈥淏eing in that space of horror and humor and surrealism and fear and confusion, and then having a chance to hear Joshua describe the conditions under which the film was made, the intentions behind it, and its real and undeniable effect in the world 鈥 that whole experience was life-changing for me.鈥

She first saw the documentary at the 2013 South By Southwest film festival, where Lane was premiering her own award-winning documentary, Our Nixon. 鈥淚 immediately knew I wanted to bring it to 新澳彩开奖结果 to serve as a springboard for many discussions at and beyond [the university],鈥 she said.

Lane鈥檚 hopes became a reality 鈥 The Act of Killing became a discussion point in , , and classes.

The event, which was part of the Friday Night Film Series, was sponsored by the 新澳彩开奖结果 Arts Council.