The Act of Killing is a 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer. It shows death squad leaders-turned-paramilitary officials in Indonesia enthusiastically, theatrically re-enacting the mass murders they committed in the 1960s. Oppenheimer's onetime collaborator, DJ /rupture, aka Jace Clayton, has produced a "musical response" to the film: a mixtape called Stage Boundary Songs. DJ /rupture worked with producer Filastine and Indonesian vocalist Nova on the mix. Stage Boundary Songs features "psychedelic folk, rock, and soul made in the decade surrounding Indonesia’s 1965 coup", according to the press release. Nova digitized music from the vinyl collection of the Museum Musik Malang.
DJ /rupture worked with the film's co-director, Anonymous, and researcher/translator Richard Curtis to incorporate poems by Indonesian poet Wiji Thukul into the mix. Thukul, per the press release, was "an icon of the country’s leftist democracy movement." Some of his poems are available in English for the first time on Stage Boundary Songs. Thukul has been missing since 1998; it is believed he was "disappeared" by President Suharto's regime, according to the press release. The cover art for Stage Boundary Songs, seen above, is adapted from a drawing by Thukul's daughter Wani.
