Stephen Fitzpatrick – Indonesia's national journalists association plans to defy a government ban on the movie Balibo, kicking off a countrywide "roadshow" tour for the film with a free public screening in Jakarta today.
Balibo was banned on Tuesday afternoon, less than two hours ahead of a planned screening by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club and just days ahead of its inclusion in the Jakarta film festival.
Under the country's censorship laws, members of the Alliansi Jurnalis Indonesia will face five years in jail and/or a 50 million rupiah ($5679) fine for each time they screen the film.
The feature, directed by Bob Connolly and featuring Australian Hollywood star Anthony LaPaglia, dramatises the murders of the so-called Balibo Five at the hands of the Indonesian military during the 1975 invasion of East Timor.
Although admitting he was "not surprised" by the banning, Balibo producer John Maynard said yesterday that "in a way this is the best outcome, because the controversy will attract the sort of audience of Indonesian elites we had hoped for to the film".
Prominent Indonesian director Garin Nugroho agreed, saying the national film censorship board's last-minute rejection of the movie was "the best way to point out the weakness of the board and of Indonesia".
The award-winning movie follows the finding of NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch two years ago that the five journalists – Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart – were murdered on the orders of senior Indonesian officers.
Their deaths, in the tiny East Timorese town of Balibo, were intended to prevent news of the invasion reaching international ears, Ms Pinch found.
Indonesia has always insisted the men died in crossfire and greeted Ms Pinch's findings – and this year's release of the film – with fury.
It has refused to co-operate with a recently opened Australian Federal Police investigation into the affair. It is also refusing to extradite the senior politician found to have been directly responsible for the assassinations, Yunus Yosfiah, to Australia for war crimes prosecution.
The movie tells the story of the murders through the eyes of veteran Australian reporter Roger East, played by LaPaglia. East was murdered shortly after the Balibo Five.Although the official screenings by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club and the Jakarta International Film Festival were cancelled as a result of the ban, a spokeswoman for the AJI said her organisation was not overly concerned about possible police reaction.
"We're used to it," AJI board member Ezki Suyanto said. "We already have colleagues who are ready to face the problems (and go to jail)."