November 5th, Monday, 7:30PM & 9:30PM

Location: Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St. Brookline, MA (directions)
Tickets: $8 general admission

Balagan and the Harvard Film Study Center Present: Boston Premiere!
Promised Paradise (2006) 52 minutes
by Leonard Retel Helmrich (Indonesia/Netherlands)
Filmmaker in person!! One night only

Banned in Indonesia, Promised Paradise follows the quest of an Indonesian puppeteer to meet three men convicted of the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali. Along the way, director Leonard Retel Helmrich shows the puppeteer’s unique method of exploring the issue of terrorism through puppet shows, featuring – among other things – a dancing Osama Bin Laden doll and a shadow-play attack on the World Trade Center.

In a suburb in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the largest Muslim community of the world, encased in a cardboard television set, troubadour Agus re-enacts the September 11 - 2001 attacks in New York in front of a public of children, using the packaging of a toy featuring the Word Trade Centre and a weird looking fish-plane. "Everything you see on your television is a lie: in this cardboard television the people are made of flesh and blood," he explains. Looking for answers, Agus tries to encounter terrorist Imam Samudra, the organizer of the 2002 discotheque bombing in Bali, in his cell in order to better corner him. He even consults a paranormal medium to enter in contact with one of the suicide bombers who died during the attack, and ask him if he regrets his act. Promised Paradise confronts reality to theatrical performances through scenes inspired by acts of violence that shatter the country and the confusions that plague Indonesian society.

Director Leonard Retel Helmrich is a Dutch/Indonesian filmmaker who worked as a drama director and cameraman in the Netherlands before going to Indonesia to make a series of documentaries that have won awards world wide. His most famous film Shape Of The Moon won Best Documentary in the World Docs Competition at Sundance 2005 as well as at the International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2004 where he won the prestigious Joris Ivens Award. Leonard developed a theoretical perspective for his work as well as a practical technique for an approach that he calls 'single shot cinema', involving long takes with a constantly moving camera. He has also designed a special camera mount that allows extraordinary stability and maneuverability in shooting called "Steadywings". Having spent years designing this technique he now also runs workshops for broadcasters and with filmmakers to share his skills, most recently in Amsterdam, Belgium, Kansas City USA, South Africa, Germany, Indonesia and Sydney Australia.