User Reviews

The movie is a thought-provoking and interesting documentary.

The actual courtroom proceedings weren't filmed, but the reconstruction of the proceedings gives you a good feel as to the emotional impact in the courtroom as the evidence was heard. The documentary is also a good introduction to the genocidal events in East Timor over the past 25 years.

For many years, the Suharto Islamic government of Indonesia conducted a campaign of genocide on the island of East Timor, which is mostly populated by Christians.

The plot concerns a court case brought in the United States against the people responsible. The film does a good job of dramatizing this story, and showing that the court is a good way of getting justice.

20 year-old NZ student, Kamal Bamadhaj, shot dead in the Dili Massacre, brings attention to the filmmakers who set out to investigate what the world wide media refused to reveal. Apart from finding the obvious, that the Indonesian army are a bunch of thugs, alongside the high commanding Generals and all the politicians from abroad who turn a blind eye, this doco reveals the anguish of Kamal's mother, Helen Todd. It is their story as they fight a corrupt system with a legal battle. It is the type of doco that boils the blood and makes us wonder why we haven't done anything about it in the last 25 years. Even the projector breakdowns during the screening didn't hinder it one bit. Powerful enough and I'm sure it will end up on our televisions.

The movie reconstructs the story of the death Kamal Bamadhaj, a young neo-zealandese student that was shot in Timor East in 1991, during a march for indipendence, and describes the trial that his mother started before a court in Boston to punish his killers. Kamal, the youngest son of a rich family, was a student at the faculty of political sciences of Sydney. Despite his comfortable situation he revealed to be sensible to social problems, and interested himself particularly on the cause of Timor East indipendence, that has recently been approved by a referendum and has caused the very well visible holocaust not yet stopped by the U.N., that allowed one third of the Timorese population to be killed. He moved to the island and started to collaborate with the local political activists. During a march in 1991 the military shot the demonstrators and 271 where killed. Among them died Kamal, who supposedly was shot intentionally by the local secret services. The court (which was entitled by the american constitution to pursue crimes against humanity) proved the responsability of a few militaries and condamned them to pay for punitive damages (hence the title). The movie is very well directed and shocks any spectator with its detached look on a dramatic reality. Only the facts are shown (sometimes facts are stronger than any story), and the more the story is developed, the more the spectator feels near to this heroic student that marched for an ideal that was not related to his own convenience and was killed for it.

His convinction was that by helping timorese people we could help not only the stopping of a long term massacre, but also the growing of a better mankind. By the end of the movie few are the persons that are not crying and feeling admiration for Kamal Bamadhaj.

Just one suggestion, if you happen to be able to watch it, do it; if you can't just remember the name of an hero: Kamal.

This documentary, whilst focussing on the life and experience of one mother and son in the resistance to Indonesian occupation of East Timor, chronicles the struggle clearly and succinctly. The talking heads are well complemented by still and file video footage. In light of the present situation in this embattled island, this is a must-see.

This documentary by New Zealand director Annie Goldson tells the story of a mother's search for truth and justice in relation to her son's death. The son, Kamal Bamadhaj, a 20 year old university student, died at the hands of the Indonesian Army in Dili, East Timor in November 1991 along with over 200 East Timorese, when a memorial service in a cemetery turned into a massacre. The mother, Helen Todd, after a long search, found eyewitnesses to the killing and was able under US law to sue the Indonesian general responsible for the death. She obtained an award of US $16 million. The award was symbolic, as the general, sent to the US to study as "punishment" for his activities in Dili, had left the country after being served with a writ.

The story is told through a variety of eyes - Kamal's sister, girlfriend, the eyewitnesses, other Timorese, the American civil liberties lawyers who took the case for little financial reward, and Helen Todd herself. There is film from the massacre, and some reconstruction of court scenes. These are a bit dull, as the hearing was a one-sided affair.

This is not a balanced piece; the Indonesian side is not put at all. You can see why (according to the poster for the film) John Pilger liked it. Yet it makes a very strong case on an intellectual as well as emotional level. The heroes, as Kamal himself recognised, are the Timorese themselves who still struggle for independence, despite having suffered over the last 25 years the most brutal repression imaginable. The Indonesian army's conduct has verged on genocide. At least 100,000 Timorese have died as a result, and in the latest sadistic twist the Army has inflicted local pro-Indonesian militias on the populace to do more killing on their behalf.

One day perhaps the Indonesian army officers and politicians responsible, like the Nazis before them, will crowd into a dock to be tried for their crimes. This film will make a nice exhibit.