Indonesia shows forbidden film

The film, the Year of Living Dangerously, has been shown in Indonesia for the first time after censors lifted a seventeen-year-ban on it.

The film was forbidden when the former President Suharto was in power, because of its depiction of the mass killings that accompanied his rise.

Reports say the film played to a packed house at the Jakarta film festival.

The festival director Natasha Devillers said the film's screening was a significant step in the country's transition towards democracy. But one journalist watching the film for the first time commented that the situation had changed little, given the violence and instability in Indonesia at present.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service