The Look of Silence

Through Joshua Oppenheimer’s work filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered –– and the identity of the men who murdered him.

The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar-nominated THE ACT OF KILLING. Through Oppenheimer’s footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers in this 2016 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.

The film focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions.

This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of 50 years of silence.

“A harrowing and humanitarian work, the culmination of Oppenheimer’s ten-year effort to let the truth out deserves every superlative that can be thrown at it.” — Nick Evan-Cook,One Room With a View