Joshua Oppenheimer

The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer

Joshua Oppenheimer

A family that survives the genocide in Indonesia confronts the men who killed one of their brothers.

The Act of Killing

Christine Cynn, Joshua Oppenheimer

Anwar Congo, Herman Koto

Filmmakers expose the horrifying mass executions of accused communists in Indonesia and those who are celebrated in their country for perpetrating the crime.

The Globalisation Tapes

Joshua Oppenheimer

Filmed by Indonesian workers during their working hours on rubber and palm oil plantations, this film exposes the devastating role of militarism and repression in building the “global economy”. Through chilling first hand accounts, hilarious improvised interventions, collective debate and archival footage, the film explores the relationships between trade, Third World debt, and international institutions like the IMF and World Bank.

Hugh

Nishit Saran, Joshua Oppenheimer

Hugh is an elderly man keeping himself active in retirement. His hobbies include teaching children to play the piano, carpentry and driving into town to preach sermons on the evils of homosexuality.

Land of Enchantment

Joshua Oppenheimer

For eighty cents an hour, prisoners in a New Mexico prison answer telephones for the state tourism hotline. Co-directed by Christine Cynn.

The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase

Joshua Oppenheimer

A kaleidoscopic history of the American heartland, nuclear weapons and the Native American genocide.

Postcard from Sun City, Arizona

Joshua Oppenheimer

Joshua Oppenheimer sets images of life in a retirement community in Arizona (as seen through television commercials) to a talk radio interview with a female convict extolling the benefits of her time on Sherriff Joe Arpaio's chain gang. It is two different kinds of sale jobs working at cross-purposes. Oppenheimer takes the luster off the idealistic advertising images through video distortion and electronic interference and cuts-up both the video and audio tracks until the weird poetry of the chain gang prisoner's lessons in life and death gives the commercial presentation a creepy disconnection from any kind of living ideal. It follows A BRIEF HISTORY OF PARADISE AS TOLD BY THE COCKROACHES and MARKET UPDATE as another sharp jab at consumerism as an illusory promise.

Muzak - a Tool of Management

Joshua Oppenheimer

Meditation on psychlogical warfare, shopping and paramilitary death squads.

The Challenge of Manufacturing

Joshua Oppenheimer

Animals are killed and processed for fast food. A man is tarred and feathered. A collage of ordinary horrors on the way to the millennium.

These Places We've Learned to Call Home

Joshua Oppenheimer

Experimental video and performance meditating on militias, American fundamentalism, the opening of the American West.

Light Test

Joshua Oppenheimer

An early silent short by Joshua Oppenheimer in which a figure reflects light at the camera.

The End

Joshua Oppenheimer

Tilda Swinton, George MacKay

A post-apocalyptic story about a rich family living in a salt mine converted into a luxurious home. The earth around them has apparently been destroyed, but their son has never seen the outside world. As a young girl appears at the entrance of the bunker, the balance of the family is threatened.

Camera Test

Joshua Oppenheimer

A group of flower arrangers practice their art in this second silent early short from Joshua Oppenheimer.

A Brief History of Paradise as Told by the Cockroaches

Joshua Oppenheimer

They say that when the Earth is destroyed beyond habitation, the only survivors will be the cockroaches. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer gives the indomitable insects the floor in this perversely comic commentary on affluence and self-destruction. Leashed with thin ribbons, a small intrusion of cockroaches scramble over magazine spreads of the good life while a schizophrenic pest voice-over mutters like an asylum inmate recalling the good old days, when food was plentiful and the roach traps were the enemy. It is consumption and consumerism as empty activity and madness, played-out as a natural history documentary in the guise of an invasion picture, all set to the theme song from LOVE STORY.

Market Update

Joshua Oppenheimer

Joshua Oppenheimer reimagines a sixty-second stock market update as maniacal monologue by a mumbling madman giving a bizarre play-by-play of floor traders and urban pedestrians as the trading day comes to an end. Created while in the midst of production on the feature-length GLOBALIZATION TAPES, this brief film is Oppenheimer's most concentrated piece of socio-political commentary: a quick, colorful political cartoon of capitalism plucked out-of-context and set to a soundtrack that is both comic and somewhat sinister. The upbeat musical accompaniment only enhances the empty celebration of meaningless activity.

Joshua Oppenheimer on Night and Fog

Joshua Oppenheimer

The Academy Award-winning director of the heavy documentary 'The Act of Killing' discusses his philosophies in documentary filmmaking, the horrors of 'Night and Fog,' and what makes it the impactful film that it is.