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span class="inline inline-right">Rest in peace: In a file photo, mourners pray before the Bali Bombing memorial monument, which lists the names of those killed by the blasts, during the anniversary of the 2002 Bali Bombings. The bomb killed 202 people, most of whom were foreigners. The monument continues to evoke painful memories of the atrocities. that occurred during the incident. (JP)The Taman 65 community in Denpasar on Monday organized a screening of a documentary about the 2002 Bali bombings in conjunction with the bombing’s anniversary on Oct. 12.

Prison and Paradise will be screened in 37 cities nationwide in cooperation with local communities from September to April next year. In Bali, the screening was held two days before the anniversary of the 2002 bombings, which killed 202 people.

“By screening this movie, we expect to stimulate critical thinking and discussion among the audience and to make them understand the real impact of religious violence,” said Ngurah Termana of the Taman 65 community.

The movie won best long documentary at the Yogyakarta Documentary Film Festival in 2010. After its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival, Prison and Paradise was played at film festivals in South Korea, India and Japan.

While most discussions of the Bali bombings focus on the perpetrators, those who were killed or injured, the role of religion and how the government can tackle terrorism, the movie approaches the surviving families of the perpetrators and of the victims.

The 93-minute documentary shows the irony between religious violence and the bleak futures of the perpetrators’ and the victims’ orphaned children.

“Islamic teachings said orphans should not be repulsed and deserve to be protected, while in fact the perpetrators themselves created orphans by committing the bombings,” said filmmaker Daniel Rudi Haryanto, popularly called Rudi.

He spent seven years working on the movie before completing it in August of last year, struggling to approach the families both of the perpetrators and the victims.

Rudi, who was born a Christian and raised with two Muslim brothers, said he initially wanted to find out why the terrorists committed such violent acts.

“Beyond the terrorism issue, we highlight the human aspect. The wives and children of the perpetrators and victims are those who suffered the most. The children lost their fathers at a very young age and face stigma.”

The movie tells the story of five children: Azzah, Asma, Qonita, daughters of bombing convicts Ali Imron and Mubarok, as well as Aldi and Alif, sons of victim Imawan Sardjono.

The children and their mothers face tough situations. The mothers face the challenge of hiding the past and explaining the situation to the children, while the children have to grow up without their fathers.

They also have to live with the stigma of terrorism and are forced to move from one place to another.

The film featured several interviews with the convicts, who were sentenced to death in November 2008 — Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Ali Gufron — and two others serving lifetime sentences — Mubarok and Ali Imron.

The film also follows Noor Huda Ismail, a counterterrorism analyst who was Mubarok’s roommate at the Al Mukmin Ngruki Islamic boarding school in Surakarta, Central Java, as he meets and interacts with the surviving families.

At the end of the film, Titin, wife of Mubarok, is asked how she feels about the victims’ families. She says, “They are not our enemies; we are sisters in faith. We hope that they can let it go, since [the situation] has been laid out by Allah.”