We are happy to award Elizabeth Wijaya the first Comparative Literature Essay Prize for her brilliant essay "To See Die, Again: The Act of Filming and The Act of Killing." This essay analyses the film "The Act of Killing" in the framework of state-legitimized mass killing. She looks at what she calls "the intertwining of performativity, re-performance and action in political and cinematic events" in the reenactment of murders by perpetrators in Indonesia. The essay subtely explores the complex problem of testimony and witnessing in the film and brings to bear theoretical concepts with a careful literary sense and political awareness. This is an important essay in the field and an outstanding example of the best writing in Comparative Literature.
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