#anwar congo

As a friend watched on, the mass murderer Anwar Congo danced the cha-cha-cha.

Just moments earlier, on a roof terrace in Indonesia, he had demonstrated his preferred method of killing people. He would use a length of wire to strangle them, he explained, because beating them to death proved too messy.

This thin man with white hair is thought to have killed at least 1,000 people, although some estimate his personal death toll was even higher.

"I've tried to forget all that," he said, cheerfully. "[With] dancing, feeling happy, a little alcohol, a little marijuana." He then began to sing.

This was one of the many striking scenes in The Act of Killing, an Oscar-nominated 2012 documentary that shone a light on one of the 20th Century's lesser known massacres.

Between 1965 and 1966, at least 500,000 people were killed in Indonesia during a political purge. Following a failed coup, the military went on a rampage and targeted suspected communists across the country.

The Act of Killing followed Congo, who was part of a notorious death squad that executed hundreds of suspected leftists, after he was invited to re-enact the killings for the cameras.

The Act of Killing (2012) Dirs. Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, and Anonymous, Cin. Carlos Arango de Montis, Lars Skree, and Anonymous