Speaking at a news conference in Melbourne on Friday 24th July, 2009, HE Jose Ramos-Horta, President of East Timor, said Balibo had allowed him to re-live events that happened nearly 35 years ago, events that 'I thought I had forgotten about'. Watching the film was, he said, like a 'flashback' to 1975, just before Indonesian forces invaded his tiny country.
Balibo, said the President, did justice to the work of the Balibo Five newsmen, and to journalist Roger East who was also killed by Indonesian forces. And the film brought back memories of his own experience covering war, as a 20-year-old newspaper journalist working in Mozambique. On one patrol, he recalled, 'We fell into an ambush, and ran as fast as we could. I did my story and never went back to cover a war.'
President Horta said the film should not 'in any way be seen as an indictment of today's Indonesia', a country which had changed dramatically in the past decade to become 'one of the most inspiring democracies in South-East Asia'. Now it was up to the Indonesian people, he said, to address the mistakes in their own past.
Actor Anthony LaPaglia, who plays Roger East, said Balibo could not have been made 'without the passion and assistance' of the East Timorese people. 'They were absolutely amazing.'
