Toronto Film Festival Dailies

THE LOOK OF SILENCE

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer

Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen (Final Cut for Real, Denmark)

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.

In his 2012 documentary The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer stunned audiences with his bold approach to unmasking the perpetrators of the mid-1960s genocide in Indonesia. While that film exposed the killers themselves, its companion piece The Look of Silence revisits the scenes of their crimes and follows one family among the hundreds of thousands in a quest for understanding as they attempt to confront the remaining murderers—a dangerous endeavor, because the killers are still in power and there hasn’t been any official reconciliation process. But this is no simple confrontational documentary told from a survivor’s point of view. In Oppenheimer’s quietly concentrated second look at the generations affected, a young man, concerned about raising his own children in a society cowed into silence, tracks down his brother’s killers and tries to force them to see the past with fresh eyes.

“The Look of Silence is profound, visionary, and stunning.” Werner Herzog

"One of the greatest and most powerful documentaries ever made. A profound comment on the human condition.”
Errol Morris

“A stunning follow-up to ‘THE ACT OF KILLING’” – Variety

Venice International Film Festival 2014

*****- The Guardian - Venice International Film Festival 2014