Night of the PencilsMovies like Night of the Pencils
- Key Features:
- Political persecution, Human rights, Terrorism, Disappearance, Torture, Murder, Activism, Historical drama, Political thriller, Violence-high
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Political drama enthusiasts, Human rights advocates, Viewers interested in South American history
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Dread → Despair
Night of the Pencils

The Night of the Pencils was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students during the last Argentine dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process). The kidnappings took place over the course of several days beginning on September 16, 1976.
Night of the Pencils
The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads in 1977. Claudio Tamburrini is a goalie for a minor-league football team when he is abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he is a terrorist. As he is tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he doesn't have, Tamburrini fully expects to be killed. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo and Tano are being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dives out a window during a rainstorm.

In Argentina, between 1982 and 1985, the Puccios, a well-established family of San Isidro, an upper-class suburb of Buenos Aires, kidnap several people and hold them as hostages for a ransom.

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

In the 1980s, a team of lawyers takes on the heads of Argentina's bloody military dictatorship in a battle against odds and a race against time.

Set during the unsettling disappearances in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of the 1970s, the film involves theater director Carlos Rueda and his wife Cecilia. Shortly after Cecilia writes an editorial commentary questioning the mysterious abductions, she is herself abducted and taken into police custody.

Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true events, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.

Taylor is forced to hide the young daughter of a Colombian woman in witness protection who will be testifying against a powerful drug cartel in Federal Court, as ruthless sicarios aim to hunt them down.

Maria is a militant activist in an organisation opposed to the military dictatorship in Argentina. She teaches reading and writing in the shanty towns and lives with her mother in an old and run-down residence. One morning, Maria is carried off, in front of her mother, by a military squad dressed in civilian clothes. The young woman is taken to the Olimpo garage, one of the numerous torture chambers which haunt Buenos Aires to the general indifference of the population. In order to make Maria talk, Tigre, the head of the centre, gives her to one of his best men, Felix.

In 1976, Argentina fell into the hands of a de facto government. Thousands of citizens are persecuted and kidnapped. This is the case of the parents of two children, who, knowing they are wanted, decide to hide.

The story of the tortuous struggle against the silence of the victims of the dictatorship imposed by General Franco after the victory of the rebel side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1975). In a democratic country, but still ideologically divided, the survivors seek justice as they organize the so-called “Argentinian lawsuit” and denounce the legally sanctioned pact of oblivion that intends to hide the crimes they were subjects of.

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

A gang of four professional criminals kidnaps a wealthy teenage girl from an airport in Paris in a meticulous plan to extort money from the girl's wealthy father. Holding her prisoner in an isolated beach house, the gang's scheme runs perfectly until their personal demons surface and lead to a series of betrayals.

Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, president of the most important political party in Italy at the time, Democrazia Cristiana, as seen from the perspective of one of his assailants -- a conflicted young woman in the ranks of the Red Brigade.

Set in 1881, a year before the start of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that had been robbing a cache of mummies they have discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artifacts on the black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members made a crucial decision when the Antiquities Service arrived.

One of the most controversial cases in recent years in Argentina, this movie is based on the true story of Nahir Galarza and the murder of her boyfriend that rocked the country. The youngest woman to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Argentina, but questions still remain- was this a crime of passion, or is the truth still yet to be fully discovered?

Former Colonel Fernandez is appointed Minister of the National Anti-Drug Agency (SENAD) and purges the special forces to fight the first of many battles against drug trafficking on the border of Paraguay and Argentina.

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

True story of thirteen totally normal young women that suffered harsh questioning and were put in prison under made up charges of helping the rebellion against Franco back in the 1940s. Despite of their innocence, the thirteen were soon executed without even a trace of evidence of any wrong doing.

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

During the last years of Pinochet's military regime, a group of militants from the "Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front" plan a prison break of political prisoners, through a tunnel that will take them 18 months to dig.

When Ilan Halimi is kidnapped for ransom because Jewish and supposedly rich, his family and the police start a race against time to save him from the tortures of the "gang of barbarians".

Sebastiano teaches high school gym classes and coaches swimming. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, and a pretty normal life. But as young Martin starts to infiltrate Sebastiano’s life, his world will get turned upside down. Eerie from the first frame, this Hitchcockian thriller portrays sexual obsession with terrifying realism.

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

In the 1980s, after a businessman is murdered at his home, an experienced police inspector and his rookie partner must delve into the gay scene of the city to catch the killer.

Rome, 1990. The night Italy's national football team is eliminated from the World Cup by Argentina on penalty kicks, a well-known film producer is found dead in the Tiber river. The main suspects for the murder are three young aspiring screenwriters, who–promptly taken to the police–start to tell their version of the story.

The 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists

Deep within Buenos Aires's labyrinthine subway system, a train mysteriously disappears along with its 30 passengers. The subway officials are greatly troubled and call in topographer Daniel Pratt to help them find it. Unfortunately, the tunnels are so vast and complex, that Pratt needs his mentor Hugo Mistein to help him. Unfortunately, he has vanished too.

Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. César, however, is wounded and captured during a bank hold up. Fernando then decides to kidnap the American ambassador in Brazil and ask for the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.

A group of students arrives in a small town during a hiking expedition. Once there, the local priest accuses them of being communist agitators on the run from an army crack-down against student demonstrations in nearby Mexico City and rallies the townsfolk to lynch them. Based on a true story.

Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

It’s 1948 and the Cold War has arrived in Chile. In the Congress, prominent Communist Senator and popular poet Pablo Neruda accuses the government of betraying the Party and is stripped of his parliamentary immunity by President González Videla. The Chief of Investigative Police instructs inspector Óscar Peluchonneau to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to escape from the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril, but they are forced to go underground.

A small town in an Argentinian province, 1975. The life of Claudio, a successful lawyer, gets complicated when he has a stupid quarrel with a stranger in a crowded restaurant.

Colonia Helena, Argentina. The mysterious Tomás Kóblic, a former Navy pilot, works as a fumigator while dealing with his dark past and the intrigues of the corrupt police commissioner…

This incredibly disturbing story follows the exploitation of an apprentice butcher, Hermógenes, and his trial after he murders his boss in broad daylight. Hermógenes, a farmhand from northern Argentina, relocates to Buenos Aires in search of a better life for himself and his young wife, but soon finds himself at the mercy of a corrupt boss. The film is based on a thorough investigation of a real event that happened in Buenos Aires 10 years ago. Almost every scene in the film is inspired by real facts or based on well documented daily practices of the “meat business” and its environment. Both a shocking exposé of unscrupulous practices in the meat industry and a heart-wrenching personal story, El Patrón became one of the most successful Argentine films of 2014.

It’s Friday night in Asunción and the temperature is 40ºC. Víctor, a 17-year-old wheelbarrow-boy, dreams of becoming famous and covets a cell phone in Mercado 4. He is offered the chance to deliver seven boxes with unknown contents in exchange for $100. This sounds like an easy job but it soon gets complicated. Something in the boxes is highly coveted. Víctor and his persecutors find themselves caught up in a crime they know nothing about.

While doing a thesis about violence, Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured to death. Soon she discovers that the girl was a former student at her college...

Documentary by Mateo Gutiérrez about the life of his father, Héctor "Toba" Gutiérrez Ruiz (1934-1976), which includes interviews with people who witnessed moments in the life of the former president of the House of Representatives, assassinated by the Uruguayan dictatorship

In 2006, a group of thieves performed what is considered one of the most famous and smart bank heists in the history of Argentina. How they robbed the Rio bank is as surprising as what happened afterwards. This is their story.

Sofia, 14 years old, is in love with Ulises. Because of him, in spite of him, she is forced into a prostitution network in Mexico. To set her free, Ulises will have to find another girl to replace her. Adapted from Jorge Volpi’s novel, set in the world of juvenile prostitution.

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

When a doctor decides to carry out an AIDS prevention program inside Latin America’s largest prison: the Casa de Detenção de São Paulo - Carandiru, he meets the future victims of one of the darkest days in Brazilian History when the State of São Paulo’s Military Police, with the excuse for law enforcement, shot to death 111 people. Based on real facts and on the book written by Dráuzio Varella.

On July 19–21, 2001, over 200,000 people took to the streets of Genoa to protest against the ongoing G8 summit. Anti-globalization activists clashed with the police, with 23-year-old protester Carlo Giuliani shot dead after confronting a police vehicle. In the aftermath, the police organized a night raid on the Diaz high school, where around a hundred people between unarmed protesters—mostly students—and independent reporters who documented the police brutality during the protests had took shelter. What happened next was called by Amnesty International "the most serious breach of civil liberties in a democratic Western country since World War II."

On October 2, 1968, a student uprising descends into violence after the Mexican government begins to use lethal force against the protesters.

Toro (Spanish for "Bull") is a young con man and the right hand of Romano, a powerful mob boss in Torremolinos, Málaga (Andalusia, south to Spain). After Toro decides to leave Romano to get a life free of crime, his last sting fails, resulting one of his brothers dead and he sent to jail. Five years later, Romano realizes that López, Toro's older brother, is robbing him money from his tourism business and he orders to kidnap Diana, López's little daughter, until this one get back the money. Without options, López visits Toro, now a touristic driver with the third grade prison close to get the parole, who only wants to be free to marry his girlfriend Estrella. When Toro accepts to help López and both meet Romano looking for a solution, Toro ends attacking Romano's men and fleeing with Diana, trying to escape from Romano's revenge. But Romano starts a ruthless searching for they three, meanwhile Toro counts the hours to back the prison according to the third grade...

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

A fictional investigative documentary looks back on the "assassination" of George W. Bush and attempts to answer the question of who committed the murder. Perhaps less morbid and disturbing to watch now than during Bush's presidency, the film doesn't address Bush's policies at all, instead focusing on the way a nation assigns blame in a time of crisis.

On September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany invades Poland, unleashing World War II. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army crosses the border. The Polish army, unable to fight on two fronts, is defeated. Thousands of Polish men, both military and government officials, are captured by the invaders. Their fate will only be known several years later.

A woman with no memories runs in fear through the night when she is rescued by a man passing by. They will both have to figure out who her mysterious enemies are and what they want to achieve.

The Zero Hour tells the story of the La Parca (Zapata 666), a fearsome assassin who is forced to kidnap a private clinic to save the love of his life, Ladydi (Amanda Key). They soonreached the police and a media circus with them, who make our character into a national hero.La Parca finds that saving the life of Ladydi be difficult, but escaped with his followers will be an almost impossible task. Time starts to run out, and what seemed like a perfect plan will end in a frantic ending where La Parca is forced to confront past mistakes, and discover that their worst enemies are closer than he imagined.

Three teenagers, brought together from bullying, indulge in petty theft, sex and drugs. They inevitably realize they can resort to violence to take revenge on everyone who has humiliated them: students, teachers and other outcasts. One of them escalates to killing, and desires to kill again. Anyone can become his next victim. The other two face the question: should they resort to violence to stop the killings?

On the last day of 1999, 20-year-old Sebastian locks himself in a TV studio. He has two hostages, a gun, and an important message for the world. The story of the attack explores a rebel’s extreme measures and last resort.

Sex-hungry teens are kidnapped by auto mechanics, who take them to a rural hospital run by aliens who need their blood as the key to their own longevity.

A psychotic small-time criminal realizes that the everyday robberies, rapes and murders he commits aren't profitable enough, so he figures to hit the big time by kidnapping the daughter of a rich man.

American novelist David Raybourne accidentally becomes entangled in the Red Brigade's terrorist plan to kidnap Italian Premier Aldo Moro during a research trip to Rome. As the terrorists attempt to kill David, he and his photojournalist friend must struggle to stay alive.

In Warsaw in 1980, the Communist Party sends disgruntled radio reporter Winkel to Gdańsk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers - particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an independent labour union leader whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews the people surrounding Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka.

At a summit for Latin American presidents in Chile where the region's geopolitical strategies and alliances are in discussion, Argentine president Hernán Blanco endures political and family drama that will force him to face his own demons.

Three thugs kidnap Emma, the daughter of a drug kingpin, and have no idea that murderous blood that runs through her veins. As time passes, the unlucky threesome finds themselves in danger from the police, gangsters and their captive.

Yorkshire, 1974. Fear, mistrust and institutionalised police corruption are running riot. Rookie journalist Eddie Dunford is determined to search for the truth in an increasingly complex maze of lies and deceit surrounding the police investigation into a series of child abductions. When young Clare Kemplay goes missing, Eddie and his colleague, Barry, persuade their editor to let them investigate links with two similar abductions that draw them into a deadly world of secrecy, intimidation, shocking revelations and police brutality.

When two American girls on a bike trip in a remote part of Argentina split up and one of them goes missing, the other must find her before her worst fears are realized.

Don Poli, the patriarch of a family embedded in politics, faces the change of party in his state - after a hundred years in power - losing all his privileges. Humiliated and angry, he threatens to disinherit his family and leave to rebuild his life. This forces his children (Kippy, Ramses and Belén) to take extreme measures to ensure their future, causing everything that could go wrong to turn out worse.

A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.

A nerdy film student and lifelong voyeur begins to believe that two lovely young strangers may have conspired to commit a brutal murder.

Four friends visit a rural locality of Chile, are brutally attacked by a man and his son. After not finding help in the town, they decide to confront these men with the help of a pair of policemen. But in this way, they will discover that their attackers have in their blood the direct legacy of the darkest period of Chilean history and will have to face the most brutal enemy.

An experienced commercial pilot is forced to collaborate with his country's intelligence services to avoid being punished for a serious fault he committed on the job. He is quickly plunged into an underworld of intrigue and extortion that will put his life at risk and he will pay a very high price to escape from it.

Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

Convinced the tragic deaths of her loved ones were orchestrated by a famous novelist she worked for, Luciana turns to a journalist to expose her truth.

During the French Revolution, a surprising company shares a coach, trying to catch up something - the time itself, perhaps.

A German intelligence officer investigates a prostitute's killing in Warsaw during World War II. He lands on three major Nazi generals as suspects, two of whom are also involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.

A second trial begins in November 1975 against French left-wing revolutionary Pierre Goldman, accused of several armed robberies and the death of two chemists.

Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a group of old, armed home-guardists.

In this adaptation of the critically acclaimed debut novel by Iranian American author Dalia Sofer, a secular Jewish family is caught up in the maelstrom of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Brazil, 1988. An unemployed tractor driver hijacks VASP flight 375 and orders commander Murilo to crash the plane on the Planalto Palace to kill the president - whom he considers guilty for the country's devastating economic crisis.

Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.

Havana, Cuba, 1990. René González, an airplane pilot, unexpectedly flees the country, leaving behind his wife Olga and his daughter Irma, and begins a new life in Miami, where he becomes a member of an anti-Castro organization.

Soviet Georgia, 1983. Preparations for Nika and Ana's wedding are in full swing and it's a big day for both of their elite families. For the newlyweds and their friends, however, the celebrations are in fact part of a cover-up, as they plot an audacious escape from the Soviet Union.

A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.

While searching for a solution to his serious health condition, David, a renowned neurosurgeon, discovers a sinister secret hidden in the past.

Madrid, Spain. A mysterious serial killer murders art collectors and uses their bodies to reproduce scenes from Los Caprichos, a famous series of drawings by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya.

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.

After a car accident that caused the loss of her baby, Jane experiences an increasing amount of nightmares that shake her to her core. After seeking professional help, her haunting visions turn into an even more frightening reality, one full of black magic, blood orgies, and murder.

Set in Argentina in 1965, the story follows the tumultuous relationship between two men who became lovers and ultimately ruthless bank robbers in a notoriously famous footnote in the annals of crime history. After a large-scale hold-up that turns bloody, the two men must flee. It is not long before the police are surrounding the building they are in and they must confront their demons to survive.

A couple of friends work for a taxi driver to rob his passengers, but they feel like they're getting ripped off. They decide to plan their own robberies, but they are amateurs and things don't go too well. One of the youths, Cordoba, whose girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, just wants to get enough cash so they can leave Argentina and get to Uruguay to start a new life. He and his friends plan one last robbery, but things don't go as planned.

In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

Three well-off young men—former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno—brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat.

Remo's self-destructive behavior overshadows his talent. Abril, an upcoming jockey, is pregnant with Remo's baby and has to decide between the child or continuing to race. They both race for Sirena, a businessman who saved Remo's life in the past but now is determined to find him, dead or alive.

An aspiring teen thieves learn what it takes to be successful pickpockets on the streets of Bogotá

February 1976. Somalian rebels hijack a school bus carrying 21 French children and their teacher in Djibouti City. When the terrorists drive it to a no-man’s-land on the border between Somalia and French territory, the French Government sends out a newly formed elite squad to rescue the hostages. Within a few hours, the highly trained team arrives to the crisis area, where the Somalian National Army has taken position behind the barbed wire on the border. The French unit is left with very few options to rescue the hostages. As the volatile situation unravels, the French men quickly come up with a daring plan: carry out a simultaneous 5 men sniper attack to get the children and the teacher out safely. A true story.

A disenfranchised 16-year-old girl connects to an older man on the internet and after a brief one-sided affair descends into obsession and anorexia.

A conflicted youth confesses to crimes he didn't commit while a man and woman aroused by death become obsessed with each other.

Julia, a 25 year-old university student, two weeks pregnant, with no criminal record, is sent to prison. Julia murdered the father of her child. This story addresses maternity, jail and Justice; confinement, guilt and solitude; but above all it deals with Julia and her son, Tomas, born inside an Argentinean prison.

While leading a police investigation of a massacre in a public school at the border of Mexico and U.S.A, special Agent Emanuel Ritter links this strange case to the coming and rising of the ancient demon Belzebuth. But in order to stop the trail of upcoming infanticides, Ritter shall have to confront himself before dealing with the forces of good and evil.

In 1983, communist Poland is shaken by the case of high school student Grzegorz Przemyk, who is beaten to death by police. The only witness of the beating becomes the number one enemy of the state.

Based upon the true story of Olga Benário, the German-born wife of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945) she was arrested and sent to Nazi Germany, where she was put to death in a concentration camp. After World War II began, Vargas decided to uphold the Allies.

In this chilling and groundbreaking documentary, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various film genres, from gangster epics to musicals. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia’s 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.

Massimo Sisti is a reputable professional with a nice house, a happy marriage, and two loving daughters, whose life is turned upside down when one day he finds a little girl tied up in his basement.
