First of all, there are a relatively high number of persons of Indonesian descent in California. In fact, many of the economists who benefited from the purge depicted in The Act of Killing went to Berkeley (they're known as the "Berkeley Mafia"). I cannot think that they are above putting pressure on the Academy and its members to slight a movie which exposes the sort of barbarism that enabled them to become the mandarins of the country's economy.

Second, the Indonesian government itself is making a very big push right now to increase its consumer spending (akin to China, Singapore, etc.) and using it for leverage internationally. It's one of the few relatively few consumer markets that's still growing fast in areas like cell phone use, social media, movie and music consumption. I could very well see Indonesia's diplomats making it known to their American counterparts that there's nothing preventing them from increasing restrictions on cultural imports over such a grossly unflattering portrait as The Act of Killing.

Again, I'm perhaps paranoid, but my experience is that the Indonesian government and its expats in America are only capable of some national pride when their dirty laundry threatens to be aired.

* For the record, I'm of Indonesian descent myself and loved The Act of Killing. But having had intense arguments over the film with still rabidly anti-communist Indonesians, I'm simply not optimistic.