Joshua Oppenheimer

I believe every time you film anybody, you create reality with that person - whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

Cinema is, of course, the great storytelling medium of modernity.

I still receive very regular death threats that make it impossible for me to return to Indonesia. I think I could get in, but I don't think I could get out again.

I think Direct Cinema's trying to be insightful by looking at reality in a very close way while, in fact, much more is staged than we like to think. In cinema verite, it's about trying to make something invisible visible - the role of fantasy and imagination in everyday life.

Yes, it was difficult - making 'The Act of Killing' in particular was a very lonely process. No one really believed in it until very close to the end. But it was also a sanctuary. I was working in obscurity.

To put it crudely, 'The Act of Killing' would blast open the space for the more delicate film, 'The Look of Silence,' to do its work.

I'm a big admirer of S21, and I really also like Rithy Panh's work in general.

The Act of Killing' helped catalyze this basic transformation in how the media talks about the past.