NEW YORK (AP) – Just before The Dissident premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, director Bryan Fogel felt that his explosive documentary, Jamal Khashoggi, would be a difficult sale.
The film, available on request this week, was one of Sundance’s most anticipated since last January. Fogel’s previous film, “Icarus,” about Russian doping at the Olympics, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. The “dissident” contains audio recordings of Khashoggi’s crime, the participation of Khashoggi’s fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, and details of hacking efforts in Saudi Arabia, including the infiltration of the mobile phone of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The Sundance audience included Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin and Reed Hastings, the executive director of Netflix.
At the screening, Fogel begged media companies not to be scared. “In my dream dream, distributors will resist Saudi Arabia,” he said. Traveling in an SUV to the film’s after-Sundance party, an optimistic Fogel said he hoped Netflix, Amazon, HBO or others would take a step forward – anyone could offer the film a global platform for Khashoggi’s story, which plays as a death, real-life geopolitical thriller from “The Dissident”.
But the rugged road in front of the “Dissident” had already been signaled. None of the streamers – many of whom bought Sundance’s top films – had asked for a preview of “The Dissident” before the festival – something that could be expected for such a high-profile documentary from an Oscar-winning director. .
“Many of the main streamers were actually there that day. Not their content heads. Their CEOs. I would have hoped that this would have led to: “We will get behind this film.” But no, “Fogel said of Zoom in Los Angeles last month. “I didn’t have a $ 1 bid, let alone $ 1 million – let alone the $ 12 million paid for the Boys State.” which is a great movie, but it’s about 17-year-old boys playing politics in Texas. “
The “dissident”, located in a ruthless political land, will finally start on Friday on request. It was finally purchased in the spring of last year, in an agreement announced in September, by Briarcliff Entertainment, the independent distributor founded by Tom Ortenberg, the veteran film executive who distributed “Spotlight” and “Snowden” as executive director of Open Road Films. After two weeks in about 200 theaters (down from 800 due to the pandemic), “The Dissident” will be available for rent in places like iTunes, Amazon and Roku.
But the great reception from the bigger media companies to “The Dissident” – not because it wasn’t good (it has a 97% fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating from critics and a 99% rating from the public ) or importantly, but because it openly provokes the repression of the Saudi regime’s freedom of expression – raises questions about the future of political films on ever-larger and potentially increasingly risky streaming services.
Netflix et al. They played a vital role in the exponentially growing audience for documentaries. But in the global search for subscriber growth, media companies have sometimes capitulated to demands that limit censorship. In 2019, Netflix removed an episode of Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act” that condemned the cover-up of Khashoggi’s crime following a Saudi complaint. Last month, The New York Times reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook shattered an emerging Apple TV + series about Gawker. Negative images of China, both for old-fashioned studios and for movies, are usually off the table.
“When huge money is at stake – business interest, shareholder responsibility, which will make us vanilla and stress-free – it wins,” says Fogel. “As these companies grow, we see that the choices they make, including their content, become less and less risky.”
For Fogel, the “Dissident’s” experience reflects Khashoggi’s silence. The film, funded by the Foundation for Human Rights, details a plot to kill Khashoggi, a former Saudi expert turned into articles in the Washington Post, who made moderate pleas for his home country to embrace freedom of expression and human rights. When he took over the papers for his marriage to Hatice Cengiz at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, he was killed and his body was cut to pieces. Intelligence reports concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing. Mohammed denied that Saudi Arabia was behind the crime, then finally agreed that it was carried out by Saudi government agents.. Mohammed claimed he was not on his orders.
The “dissident” includes interviews with Cengiz, Turkish authorities and UN investigators who deduced that Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, was hacked by a malicious file sent from Mohammed’s personal WhatsApp account.. The same hacking scheme was allegedly used for exiled activist Omar Abdulaziz, an associate of Khashoggi. The “dissident” finally wonders why countries and companies continue to do business with a country that uses such methods, imprisoning and killing dissidents.
“I hope this film will keep Jamal’s name and Jamal’s life and values alive,” says Cengiz, speaking by telephone from Istanbul. “I hope people will ask for more and more.”
President Donald Trump has refused to blame Mohammed for the murder, and is quoted in Bob Woodward’s last book, boasting that he “saved” the crown prince. President-elect Joe Biden has signaled a tougher stance on Saudi Arabia. Cengiz has asked the CIA to declassify its investigation into the murder.
She also continued Khashoggi’s mission. “It wasn’t my choice, it was my life,” she says. The fact that American film companies could have been scared of “The Dissident,” she says, is “disappointing.”
“I couldn’t imagine that they wouldn’t buy this movie, because this movie is about a very important crime in history,” says Cengiz. “This film is about someone who fought for some very important values. That’s why they killed him. So that’s why we’re fighting. “
In particular, avoiding Netflix from “The Dissident” is “incredibly disappointing,” Fogel said. “Icarus” won its first Netflix Oscar. A Netflix spokesman declined to comment on The Dissident’s broadcast. In November, the streamer entered into a production deal with Saudi studio Telfaz11 for eight films.
But Fogel is also clear about the potential dangers associated with distributing “The Dissident,” considering the possibility of Saudi hacking or boycotting a distributor in the Middle East.
“Eventually, these risk assessments took place whether or not the two hundred million subscribers would want to see this film,” says Fogel. “It wasn’t just Netflix, it was universal. What I think Hollywood has learned from the Sony hack is that the risk of embarrassment is too great. “
Ortenberg, on the other hand, felt comfortable with any headache the “dissident” might bring. “The film speaks for itself,” says Ortenberg, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles. He presents the “Dissident” for consideration of the awards.
“It’s a shame,” Ortenberg says of retaining other studios. “I’ve always seen entertainment film studios as leading accusations on important issues and not avoiding controversy, but embracing the challenges and taking on the challenge of making films about important topics and treating them with respect.”
Fogel sees a lack of international and corporate will to respond to worsening human rights abuses in Hollywood and elsewhere. Last week, the Saudi security court sentenced 31-year-old Loujiain Al-Hathloul to more than five years in prison for tweets in support of women’s right to drive and pleading against guardianship regulations. men.. Imprisoned since May 2018, she said she was tortured and sexually assaulted by masked men during interrogations.
“I believe that people with positions of power like this, with wealth and resources, if they are not willing to support such human rights violations, for what I consider the greatest good of the planet, is becoming an increasingly frightening place. in which to live “, says Fogel. “We all become less safe.”
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Follow AP Film writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP