A film about the killing of New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham and four other journalists in East Timor is picking up international recognition. Helen Barlow talks to director Robert Connolly
Australian film-maker Robert Connolly has just returned home to Melbourne from the Palm Springs Film Festival where he was presenting his new film Balibo, which follows the deaths of five Australian-based journalists during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.
As with other war films, it's not an easy sell, so to make it more palatable the film is being marketed as a political thriller and has been renamed The Balibo Conspiracy for a potential US release.
"It's sort of a genre film so it's something I'm not concerned about," admits the politically-inclined Connolly, who is known as the director of The Bank (2001) and as the producer of The Boys (1998).
"I think it's probably a good idea, to try and get it a US sale. The reception at Palm Springs was great."
Interestingly this real life drama has a lot in common with Kathryn Bigelow's current awards contender, the low-budget war thriller, The Hurt Locker, as both films create tension through edgy film-making and outstanding performances from ensemble casts.
"The films share an authenticity that perhaps more conventional Hollywood cinema doesn't have," notes Connolly. "They both have a huge effect on audiences."
Written by Connolly and David Williamson (Gallipoli) and book-ended by the memories of a fictitious East Timorese woman, Balibo recalls the events when the so-called Balibo Five went missing as they attempted to film the Indonesian invasion at a 400-year-old Portuguese fort in the East Timorese town of Balibo.
The story follows Jose Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaac), then 25 and working as East-Timor's foreign affairs spokesman, as he travels to Darwin to convince the reluctant and ageing former hard-nosed political journalist, Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia), to travel to Dili to report on his country's turbulence.
Horta only convinces him by showing him photographs of the missing Australian-based journalists: Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, and Kiwi cameraman Gary Cunningham.
Eventually, after East spends time in Dili assessing the situation, the pair travel to Balibo, partly on foot, and discover that the journalists had been executed there by Indonesian troops.
This version of events, stemming from a 2007 Sydney coroner's inquest - which backed up claims from Jill Jolliffe's 2001 source book, Cover-Up, that the men had been murdered - flies in the face of the Indonesian and Australian governments' long-held wisdom that they were accidental deaths in crossfire.
The film, which has been banned in Indonesia, has triggered debate over how the deaths occurred, notes Connolly.
"The whole idea that the Australian Federal police initiated a war crimes investigation four weeks after the theatrical release of the film is pretty incredible. It will be interesting to see what pressure it puts on the New Zealand Government and also on the UK Government when it releases there later in the year."
Connolly describes Cunningham as an amazing cameraman. He had worked for the National Film Unit in Wellington before he came to Australia. Connolly researched Cunningham's life via his brother, Greig, and sister Ann and also via his son, John Milkins, who only discovered Cunningham was his father after his death.
The family saga became the subject of an episode of ABC television's Australian Story. Milkins, currently working as an environmental co-ordinator in Melbourne, is a board member of the Balibo House Trust, which supports the lives of the East Timorese citizens and promotes awareness of the lives and deaths of the Balibo Five.
"John's story is very moving," says Connolly. "As a child he was adopted out and it was only in his adult years that he wanted to find out who his father was. He met Gary's parents, who had tragically lost their son but, years later, discovered that they had a grandson. John was incredibly helpful. We had great access to the family and we met cameramen and journalists who knew Gary when he was working."
Gyton Grantley (Underbelly) spent a lot of time getting to know Cunningham's family, discovering what kind of a man he was and learning the methodology of being a journalist of the time.
"All the actors playing the journalists took their responsibility very seriously and met the men's families," says Connolly. "It got to the point where they felt like they needed permission from the families to play these men."
Without A Trace star LaPaglia came to the film straight from the creature comforts of Hollywood."After six years of Without A Trace and then coming to East Timor I think Anthony was profoundly affected by it," recalls Connolly.
"He's a soccer nut and he used to get up every morning and, at 6am, he'd be across the road kicking a soccer ball around with all the kids before they went to school in this dirt soccer pitch. I'd worked with him before on my first film, The Bank, and he and I were able to have a pretty robust approach to the material and to push each other to get the best results."
Filming in East Timor was tough due to budgetary constraints, though never dangerous. "We were under the radar there with a small crew and we worked fast," recalls Connolly.
"We shot with a good Timorese crew. The country has an effect on everyone who goes there. I can understand how the journalists had been compelled to tell the story of the country in turmoil. In Greg Shackleton's piece to camera, you can see the effect and, clearly, Roger East stayed because he cared for the country."
Now Indonesian journalists are trying to set the record straight as well. The Indonesian Journalists Association is challenging the country's ban on Connolly's film and pirated copies have been screening across Indonesia.
While Connolly is seeing little monetary return for his film there, he is pleased it is helping the truth be known. "There's a whole generation of Indonesian people who are really keen to know what happened."
A former Indonesian army colonel, Gatot Purwanto, after seeing Connolly's film, admitted Indonesian soldiers deliberately killed the Balibo Five to cover up the invasion.
"If we let them leave, they would say that this was the Indonesian invasion," Purwanto, who was a low-ranking special forces soldier when he took part in the 1975 assault on Balibo, told Tempo magazine. "If we let them go there would be evidence."
Balibo opens in New Zealand on February 18.
FIVE JOURNALISTS, ONE HORRIFIC STORY
* Wellington cameraman Gary Cunningham and four colleagues - Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton and Anthony Stewart - were executed on October 16, 1975 and their bodies burned.
* They were in Balibo attempting to film Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.
* Peters and Rennie were British nationals working for Australia's Channel 9. Shackleton and Stewart were Australians and along with Cunningham worked for the rival Channel 7.
* Last September, four weeks after the release of the film Balibo in Australia, the Australian federal police launched a war crimes investigation.
* In December, former Indonesian Army colonel Gatot Purwanto, who took part in the assault on Balibo, admitted in a magazine interview that a decision was made to kill the Australia-based newsmen, contradicting Indonesia's official line that they died in crossfire.
