This movie is historically inaccurate and over exaggerated. Some facts about the real historical events:
-The journalist Roger East was never cajoled out of his public service job by the young Fretilin foreign spokesman Jose Ramos Horta to work in East Timor, and nor did Ramos-Horta hand him an AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only) dossier on the Balibo Five
-East and Ramos-Horta never trekked on foot to Balibo, and nor were they attacked by a US helicopter along the way.
-The Indonesians didn't attack up the hill in front of the Balibo fort, but from around the back of the village.
-The senior commander of the Balibo operation for the Indonesian army, Colonel Dading Kalbuadi, didn't put a pistol to the head of the journalist Brian Peters and shoot him dead. He was 10 km away at the time.
-East wasn't captured trying to send his last report from Dili's Marconi radio office.
-And it's unlikely that General Benny Murdani, the Indonesian army intelligence chief, was observing the executions of East and Timorese people on the Dili wharf on 8 December, dressed in a white safari suit, though he did parachute into Dili some time that day.
-The journalist Roger East was never cajoled out of his public service job by the young Fretilin foreign spokesman Jose Ramos Horta to work in East Timor, and nor did Ramos-Horta hand him an AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only) dossier on the Balibo Five
-East and Ramos-Horta never trekked on foot to Balibo, and nor were they attacked by a US helicopter along the way.
-The Indonesians didn't attack up the hill in front of the Balibo fort, but from around the back of the village.
-The senior commander of the Balibo operation for the Indonesian army, Colonel Dading Kalbuadi, didn't put a pistol to the head of the journalist Brian Peters and shoot him dead. He was 10 km away at the time.
-East wasn't captured trying to send his last report from Dili's Marconi radio office.
-And it's unlikely that General Benny Murdani, the Indonesian army intelligence chief, was observing the executions of East and Timorese people on the Dili wharf on 8 December, dressed in a white safari suit, though he did parachute into Dili some time that day.