Dutch Doc banned from Jakarta International Film Festival

The Dutch documentary PROMISED PARADISE by Leonard Retel Helmrich is banned from the Jakarta International Film Festival. Saturday the film had its Asian première at the festival. Afterwards, the Censorship Commision asked the festival organisation to cancell all further screenings.

According to producer Scarabee Films the Governmental Censorship Commision did not give a reason for this cancellation. Scarabee imagines the film is banned because it contains images of Imam Samudra, one of the people held responsible for the bomb attack on a nightclub in Bali on October 12, 2002.

PROMISED PARADISE premiered at the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival, Visions du Reel 2006 and was also shown at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival 2006 and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam two weeks ago. The film tells the story of the Jakarta-based Indonesian puppeteer and troubadour Agus Nur Amal. He travels to Bali to call to account the people who were responsible for the bomb attack on a nightclub there. Director Leonard Retel Helmrich, the 2004 winner of the Joris Ivens Award with SHAPE OF THE MOON, uses ingenious editing to have Agus talk with the brain behind the attack in a "TV interview."