Promised Paradise

‘Your TV sets at home are fake; in this TV the people are made of flesh and blood’, sings/says Indonesian theatre troubadour and puppeteer Agus to his young audience. Next, he enacts 9/11 with an empty toy box as the WTC building and a plastic fish as a plane. Agus is one of the artists in Indonesia who have doubts about the increase of fundamentalism and violence in their country. In the documentary Promised Paradise, he is followed in his search for answers to the question how things could get this far and why violence is the solution to fundamentalists. In the process, he confronts both accidental passers-by and people directly involved with his vision. For example, he manages to arrange a meeting in prison with Imam Samudra, the brain behind the discotheque attack on Bali in 2002. He also has a paranormal conversation with one of the terrorists who died during the attack, asking him whether he regrets his actions.