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2:39:29When the government of Indonesia was overthrown by the military in 1965, the gangsters Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry were promoted from selling black market movie theatre tickets to leading the most powerful death squad in North Sumatra. In The Act of Killing Anwar and his cohorts recount and gruesomely re-enact their experiences and some of their killings for the cameras, making horrific scenes depicting their memories and feelings about the killings. But as they begin to dramatise Anwar’s own nightmares, the scenes begin to take over as artforms, leading to confrontations of memories of historical reality. Can the horrific imagination succumb to moral catastrophe in this case? And if sociopaths are not reachable people anymore, the question becomes what we must do to stop them.
1:29:32My Country, My Country documents the United States’ invasion of Iraq from an insider’s perspective, as told by Iraqi citizens themselves, and by the efforts of a devoted father and Sunni Muslim political candidate. Filmmaker Laura Poitras also spends time on the ground following the United States military ‘Civil Affairs’ team during the 2005 elections in Iraq. As the US government attempts to “bring democracy” to the country, Baghdad native Dr. Riyadh is faced with making the difficult decision of supporting the popular boycott of the elections, or fighting for a democracy that seems ever more unlikely with each passing day. With intimate footage of Dr. Riyadh’s interactions with the public and candid interviews featuring the opinions of every-day citizens, My Country, My Country provides a rare look inside the struggle in Iraq in the context of an ongoing brutal occupation.
1:15:40Produced while the invasion was in full swing, Iraq for Sale investigates some the many private contractors and consultants that were brought into to Iraq as part of the United States military machine. Four major contractors are profiled: Blackwater, K.B.R.-Halliburton, CACI and Titan, along with investigations of human rights violations, systemic misconduct, corruption, and profiteering. The film posits what damage is done to the ‘average citizen’ when corporations decide to wage war. For those in opposition to war and corporate power, the connection between the invasion of Iraq and the private corporations who profit from the fighting is plain to see. For those who still may not be so easily convinced, the film not only explores the questionable motivations of the corporate decision-makers whose wartime profiteering has affected the lives of countless soldiers and their families, not mention the lives of millions of civilians, but also the increasingly negative international reputation of the United States as a result.