'The Act of Killing' Releases BitTorrent Bundle with Exclusive Content

Today, just as the Director’s Cut of the film is made available on iTunes for the first time, via distributor Drafthouse Films, “The Act of Killing” has released a BitTorrent Bundle with exclusive content.

“The Act of Killing has an important message. Our goal is to reach as many people as possible — to preserve this film as a documentary, and as a testament to what happened in Indonesia. BitTorrent Bundle allows us to address a global audience of more than 170 million: to ensure that awareness of the film’s message reaches beyond the Internet’s censors and firewalls,” said Evan Husney, Creative Director at Drafthouse Films.

In “The Act of Killing,” director Joshua Oppenheimer meets up with the men who led the death squads in North Sumatra in the Indonesian genocides of the mid 1960’s in Indonesia, still celebrated in many parts of the country, and works with them to recreate their killings in the style of their favorite Hollywood movies.

The filmmakers are using BitTorrent Bundle to distribute and preserve Indonesian death squad testimony.

The BitTorrent Bundle features interviews, essays, and stills from videos from the award-wining documentary’s director Joshua Oppenheimer as well as Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, who served as producers of the film. It also features reporting on the impact of the film on Indonesia, as documented by TEMPO Magazine.

Read More: Spotlight on “The Act of Killing” Director Joshua Oppenheimer

The film’s Indonesian Co-Director, who remains anonymous to maintain his or her safety, issued a statement: “Collective blindness is price paid by the country: the true legacy of dictatorship is the erasure of our ability to imagine anything other. In partnering with Drafthouse to share this Bundle with 170 million people around the world, our goal is to ensure that we remember. To guarantee Indonesia’s, and our own, ability to imagine anything other.”

“The Act of Killing,” which is on the Oscar shortlist for documentary feature, recently won the 2013 PUMA Impact Award, which honors the documentary film that has made the most significant positive social or environment impact.

BitTorrent Bundle was designed to support free speech and open creativity; using decentralized technology to protect digital artifacts from being destroyed or censored. Previous BitTorrent Bundles include the Madonna-directed “secretprojectrevolution,” which launched “Art For Freedom,” an online global initiative to support freedom of expression, and “The Lady Gaga Bundle.”

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