Summary: Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his documentary “The Act of Killing.” When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on the black market to leading anti-communist death squads in the mass murder of over a million people. The filmmakers examine a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass-killings in the style of the American movies they love. “The Act of Killing” opens in New York July 19 at Landmark Sunshine Cinemas.
