What 2014 companion documentary to The Act of Killing focuses on survivors?

The 2014 companion documentary to The Act of Killing that focuses on survivors and victims’ families is The Look of Silence.

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, the film returns to Indonesia’s 1965–66 mass killings from the perspective of Adi Rukun, whose older brother Ramli was murdered during the purge. Adi works as an optometrist and uses eye examinations as a way to meet men who participated in the killings, asking them about what happened and confronting their continuing impunity.

The film’s title reflects both the silence surrounding the massacre and the fear that still shapes everyday life. Many perpetrators remain influential, while survivors and their relatives have often had to live alongside them. Adi’s conversations are restrained but deeply confrontational, contrasting with the theatrical re-enactments and perpetrators’ bravado in The Act of Killing.

The Look of Silence premiered at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI prize. It was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. A common mistake is to call it a sequel in the usual narrative sense; it is better understood as a companion work using related footage and events from a different moral viewpoint.