Golden Frog for best cinamatography at camera image
OSCAR NOMINATED
A film by Joshua Oppenheimer
SYNOPSIS 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 killed him.
The youngest brother is determined to break the spell of silence and fear under which the survivors live, and so confronts the men responsible for his brother’s murder – something unimaginable in a country where killers remain in power.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The Act of Killing exposed the consequences for all of us when we build our everyday reality on terror and lies. The Look of Silence explores what it is like to be a survivor in such a reality.
Making any film about survivors of genocide is to walk into a minefield of clichés, most of which serve to create a heroic (if not saintly) protagonist with whom we can identify, thereby offering the false reassurance that, in the moral catastrophe of atrocity, we are nothing like perpetrators.
But presenting survivors as saintly in order to reassure ourselves that we are good is to use survivors to deceive ourselves. It is an insult to survivors’ experience, and does nothing to help us understand what it means to survive atrocity, what it means to live a life shattered by mass violence, and to be silenced by terror.
To navigate this minefield of clichés, we have had to explore silence itself. The result, The Look of Silence, is, I hope, a poem about a silence borne of terror – a poem about the necessity of breaking that silence, but also about the trauma that comes when silence is broken.
Maybe the film is a monument to silence – a reminder that although we want to move on, look away and think of other things, nothing will make whole what has been broken.
Nothing will wake the dead. We must stop, acknowledge the lives destroyed, strain to listen to the silence that follows.
YEAR:
2016
DIRECTOR:
Joshua Oppenheimer
DOP:
DOP Lars Skree
Starring:
Enon
AWARDS
Nominated for the 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
Acey Artist Choice Award - Best Documentary of 2015
Acey Artist Choice Award - Best Editing in a Documentary 2015
Festival d'Angers - Audience Award for Best Film of 2015
Festival d'Angers- Grand Jury Prize - Special Mention 2015
Austin Film Critics Association (AFCA) - Best Documentary of 2015
Beboti Film Awards - Best Foreign Language Film of 2015
Beboti Film Awards - Best Documentary of 2015
Berlin Film Festival - Peace Film Prize of 2015
Bodil Award - Danish Film Critics Association Prize - Best Documentary of 2015
Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) - Best Foreign Language Film of 2015
Busan International Film Festival - Best World Documentary (Cinephile Prize) 2014
Calgary Underground Film Festival - Jury Awards Best Documentary Feature 2015
Camerimage Film Festival - Best Documentary of 2015
CINE Golden Eagle Award - Best Feature Length Documentary of 2015
Cinema Eye Honors - Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking 2016
Cinema Eye Honors - Outstanding Achievement in Direction 2016
Cinema Eye Honors - Outstanding Achievement in Production 2016
Central Ohio Film Critics Association - Best Documentary of 2015
Cologne International Film and Television Festival - Phoenix Prize 2015
CPH:DOX - Grand Prize (DOX Award) 2014
Danish Arts Council - Prize of the Danish Arts Council 2014
Danish Academy Award (Robert Prize) - Best Documentary of 2015
DCist - Best Film of 2015
Denver Film Critics Society - Best Documentary of 2016
Denver Film Festival - Best Documentary of 2014
Docs Against Gravity – Warsaw - Amnesty International Award 2015
Docs Barcelona - Audience Award 2015
Docs Barcelona - Amnesty International Award 2015
Docs Barcelona - Best Documentary - Honorable Mention 2015
Documenta Madrid - Audience Award of 2015
Durban International Film Festival - Amnesty International Honorary Award 2015
Festival Cinematográfico del Uruguay - Human Right Best Feature 2015
Festival de Cine de Derechos Humanos Buenos Aires - Best Film of 2015
Festival de Cinéma Valenciennes - Grand Prix 2015
Festival de Cinéma Valenciennes - Prix de la Critique 2015
Festival de Cinéma Valenciennes - Prix Étudiants 2015
Gotham Award - Best Documentary of 2015
Gothenburg International Film Festival - Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary of 2015
Burma Human Rights Human Dignity Film Festival - Aung San Suu Kyi Award 2015
IDA Documentary Awards - Best Feature Documentary Award 2015
Independent Spirit Award - Best Documentary of 2015
Indiewire Critics Poll- Best Documentary of 2015
Indonesian Alliance of Independent Journalists - Tasrif Award of 2015
KBPS - Best Film of 2015
London Critic's Circle Award - Foreign Language Film of the Year 2016
MakeDox International Filmfestival - Best Film of 2015
Milwaukee Film Festival - Jury Award Best Documentary of 2015
Movies That Matter Festival - Vara Audience Award 2015
Nonfics - Best Documentary of 2015
Nonfics Critics Poll - Best Documentary of 2015
NordicDocs - Special Jury Prize 2015
Nordisk Panorama - Audience Award for Best Film 2015
Nuremberg Human Rights Film Festival - Award of Honor 2015
Nuremberg Human Rights Film Festival - Audience Award 2015
Online Film Critics Society - Best Documentary of 2015
Prague One World Film Festival - Best Film of 2015
Realscreen - Best Documentay of 2015
Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize 2015
River Run International Film Festival - Best Director (Documentary) 2015
Satellite Awards - Best Documentary of 2015
Seattle Film Awards - Best Documentary of 2015
Sheffield International Documentary Festival - Audience Award 2015
Sofia International Film Festival - Best Documentary of 2015
Subversive Film Festival - Wild Dreamer Award 2015
SXSW Film Festival - Audience Award, Festival Favourites for Best Film 2015
Toronto Film Critics Society - Best Documentary of 2015
Tromsø International Film Festival - FICC Award/Don Quixote Prize 2015
True/False Film Festival - True Life Fund Recipient Award
Victoria Film Festival - Best Documentary of 2015
Village Voice Critics Poll - Best Documentary of 2015
Vilnius International Film Festival - Best Director 2015
Venice Film Festival - Grand Jury Prize 2014
Venice Film Festival - Human Rights Award 2014
Best Film of Venice Film Festival - Critics Price (FIPRESCI) 2014
Best European and Mediterranean Film of Venice Film Festival 2014 - European Critics Prize (FEDORA) 2014
Best Film of Venice Film Festival - Online Critics Prize (Mouse d'Oro) 2014
Zurich Film Festival - Special Mention - International Documentary 2014
