| Description |
1 online resource (53 minutes) |
| Summary |
In the Indonesian province of Aceh, journalist William Nessen gained a general's trust and patrolled with the military. He fell in love with a local translator, who worked secretly for the independence movement. Nessen lived for months on the frontlines with GAM independence guerrillas, was hunted by the military, imprisoned for 40 days and twice expelled from the country. Days after Nessen's marriage in Aceh, the security forces kidnapped and killed his 'best man,' an outspoken human rights activist. Through the lens of Nessen's personal and powerful experiences emerges the first film to tell the story of Aceh's rebellion against Indonesian rule. The Black Road takes us on a journey deep inside Southeast Asia's hottest conflict - a conflict that may well decide the fate of Indonesia, Australia's closest neighbour and the world's largest Muslim nation. The people of Aceh fight for political independence; Indonesia wants to keep the gas-rich province firmly under its control. The film brings us directly to the battlefields and burnt-out villages of the province. We step into the lives and experience the deaths of Aceh's GAM guerrillas, its human rights activists and ordinary farmers. We march with demonstrators and witness the massacres that follow. Acknowledging a hundred-year history of resistance to outside rule, the film focuses on the past three years of escalating fighting, martial law and the banning of all foreign journalists. The film begins and ends with extraordinary scenes that no other journalist has captured: the conflict continuing even in the rubble of the tsunami. But there is some laughter here too and the possibility of healing. It's a story about how people endure, struggle and maintain their dignity against the odds. The Aceh conflict raises a crucial political question, which is the subtext of the film: Is political freedom for a long-suffering people more important than the right of a country to hold its disparate parts together? The Black Road is also a startling account of a Nessen's painful four-year journey of self-discovery, as he is pulled deeper into the conflict and the tragedy and the personal lives of the Acehnese. Nessen increasingly wrestles with the dilemmas of remaining an observer in a place of terrible misdeeds |
| Notes |
Title from resource description page (viewed August 03, 2015) |
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In English |
| Subject |
Indonesia. Angkatan Darat
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Gerakan Aceh Merdeka
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Guerrillas -- Indonesia -- Aceh
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Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004
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Tsunamis -- Indonesia -- Aceh
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| SUBJECT |
Aceh (Indonesia) -- Autonomy and independence movements
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| Form |
Streaming video
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| Author |
Nessen, William, director
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Ogilvie, Andrew, producer
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