Indonesia's film censor says Balibo is a great film but he had to ban it because of its potential to spark trouble.
Mukhlis Paeni, head of Indonesia's Film Censorship Agency (LSF) – which banned the acclaimed Australian film just hours before its Jakarta premiere this week – said Balibo was artistically extraordinary but politically dangerous.
"Let's sit together and think about the future, not look back at the past," he told local news portal VIVANews. Dwelling on the past would only create "commotion", he said.
Organisers of the Jakarta International Film Festival, which had planned to show the film, said on Thursday they were still waiting for the LSF to officially explain its reasons for the ban.
Balibo depicts Indonesian soldiers brutally murdering the five Australia-based newsmen in the East Timorese border town in 1975, contradicting the official explanation they were killed in crossfire.
Paeni denied the Indonesian military, known as the TNI, had pressured the LSF into the ban: "The LSF is independent and could not be pressured by anyone."
But the TNI applauded the LSF's decision, saying the film would only reopen old wounds. "For us, the Balibo case is over," TNI spokesman Sagom Tamboen said.
Meanwhile, Indonesia's Independent Journalist Alliance has vowed to defy the ban and stage a series of screenings, starting on Thursday night.
"Our motivation is basically freedom of expression," the alliance's Ezki Suyanto said. "There's nothing Indonesia should be afraid of in that film."
Asked if the group feared a police response, Ezki said: "There is some fear. But we are more afraid that democracy in this country is dying."
Indonesia's tourism minister on Thursday agreed the film was unsuitable for Indonesian audiences.
"Come on, we don't have to question what happened in the past," Jero Wacik said. "What happened in the past, it's closed."
The film's release in Australia earlier this year came just weeks before federal police announced they would conduct a formal war crimes investigation into the killings.
The AFP probe follows a 2007 coronial inquest that concluded Indonesia deliberately killed the journalists to cover up their East Timor invasion.