With voting now underway for the Oscar documentary shortlists, Academy Doc Branch members are choosing from a variety of contenders, including one from Laura Poitras, director of the Oscar-winning Citizenfour.
Poitras’s earlier film focused on Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the existence of the National Security Agency’s secret and widespread surveillance programs. Her latest, the short documentary Terror Contagion, exposes the activities of a private Israeli company called Nso, maker of a spyware program that has been deployed by numerous governments to crack down on journalists, human rights advocates and others.
“It’s classified as a cyber weapon. This is how extremely violent and invasive this technology is,” Poitras tells Deadline. “Nso Group, this Israeli company, sells to other countries, often countries that have a very bad history or track record of human rights.”
Like Saudi Arabia. The regime allegedly used the Pegasus software to infect the phone of a Saudi dissident,...
Poitras’s earlier film focused on Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the existence of the National Security Agency’s secret and widespread surveillance programs. Her latest, the short documentary Terror Contagion, exposes the activities of a private Israeli company called Nso, maker of a spyware program that has been deployed by numerous governments to crack down on journalists, human rights advocates and others.
“It’s classified as a cyber weapon. This is how extremely violent and invasive this technology is,” Poitras tells Deadline. “Nso Group, this Israeli company, sells to other countries, often countries that have a very bad history or track record of human rights.”
Like Saudi Arabia. The regime allegedly used the Pegasus software to infect the phone of a Saudi dissident,...
- 12/11/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
This is an important documentary that has been avoided for too long. In recounting the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, The Dissident presents a biography of the man, his association with Saudi Arabia, and a thorough overview of the geopolitical forces that caused his tragic death. Directed by Bryan Fogel, it is a very worthy successor to his debut film Icarus, which won Netflix its first Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature back in 2018. Why, then, did this truth-seeking film get ignored?
Fogel had hoped for a distribution deal with one of the streaming giants at Sundance 2020, yet he left Park City empty handed. This was despite an audience that included Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin and Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive. Clearly, Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi was just too hot for the major platforms, whose leaders were more interested in the bottom line than standing up for human rights.
Fogel had hoped for a distribution deal with one of the streaming giants at Sundance 2020, yet he left Park City empty handed. This was despite an audience that included Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin and Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive. Clearly, Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi was just too hot for the major platforms, whose leaders were more interested in the bottom line than standing up for human rights.
- 2/24/2021
- by Jack Hawkins
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The close associate of the journalist killed by the Saudi regime is determined to speak out in a new documentary, despite the arrest of family members
Not long before he was murdered, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi told his young friend Omar Abdulaziz two things that have subsequently never been far from his thoughts. The first was: “Never forget, your words matter.” And the second: “Be careful, this kind of work might get you killed.”
Omar Abdulaziz, 29, lives in exile in Montreal, Canada, where he has been, before and after Khashoggi’s death, among the most vocal critics of the Saudi regime that killed his friend. His words do matter – his tweets have been viewed nearly a billion times in the past year; he has an almost daily YouTube programme that has clocked up 45m views. And he is left in no doubt of their potential consequence: death threats are routine...
Not long before he was murdered, the journalist Jamal Khashoggi told his young friend Omar Abdulaziz two things that have subsequently never been far from his thoughts. The first was: “Never forget, your words matter.” And the second: “Be careful, this kind of work might get you killed.”
Omar Abdulaziz, 29, lives in exile in Montreal, Canada, where he has been, before and after Khashoggi’s death, among the most vocal critics of the Saudi regime that killed his friend. His words do matter – his tweets have been viewed nearly a billion times in the past year; he has an almost daily YouTube programme that has clocked up 45m views. And he is left in no doubt of their potential consequence: death threats are routine...
- 2/20/2021
- by Tim Adams
- The Guardian - Film News
For Bryan Fogel, getting access to the transcripts of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey was the result of a long history of trust building with the Turkish government. “It took me a year of—I can’t even count the number of meetings with Turkish government officials back and forth between Istanbul and Ankara,” the director of “The Dissident” tells Gold Derby in our Meet the Experts: Documentary panel (watch above). He received the transcripts only a month prior to the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and required another six months of work to properly insert them into the final cut. Fogel also remembers how shocking it was “to see what appears to be the joy that these assassins are taking in murdering Jamal, dismembering him and there’s a real pride of work and there’s many types of...
- 1/28/2021
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
When Bryan Fogel set out to make “The Dissident,” his intrepid and arresting exposé on the assassination of Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, he knew there were myriad security risks involved. There was the matter of Khashoggi’s killing—a brutal one, his body sawed into parts—at the hands of a Saudi murder squad, a death that US intelligence agencies have determined with a high degree of certainty was ordered by the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. But there was danger lurking around every corner of this high-octane thriller, one that sent a shiver of terror down the spines of not only career journalists, but human rights activists and political dissidents globalwide. Fogel, a cinematic troubadour in the dogged pursuit of truth, was undeterred. Armed with exclusive access to Turkish criminal files, he embarked on a daring quest to unveil all facts in the...
- 1/27/2021
- by Malina Saval
- Variety Film + TV
Cinematographer and producer Jake Swantko had to move quickly if he and director Bryan Fogel wanted to dive into the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was captured, killed and dismembered at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
The story was still moving as Fogel and Swantko were starting to think about following the scandal for the documentary that became “The Dissident,” now available on demand and in select theaters. “It started with a two-camera package and a one-man band shooting those important scenes where people were living in the moment of what was happening,” Swantko explains.
Barely a week before, Swantko had been on vacation in Italy, but the story of murder, power, a cover-up and standing up for what you believe in had captured his interest. A key player in the film is Omar Abdulaziz, an outspoken Saudi dissident who worked with Khashoggi and wanted...
The story was still moving as Fogel and Swantko were starting to think about following the scandal for the documentary that became “The Dissident,” now available on demand and in select theaters. “It started with a two-camera package and a one-man band shooting those important scenes where people were living in the moment of what was happening,” Swantko explains.
Barely a week before, Swantko had been on vacation in Italy, but the story of murder, power, a cover-up and standing up for what you believe in had captured his interest. A key player in the film is Omar Abdulaziz, an outspoken Saudi dissident who worked with Khashoggi and wanted...
- 1/21/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Updated with video: No one can say filmmaker Bryan Fogel doesn’t enjoy a cinematic challenge.
He exposed Russia’s secret sports doping program in the Oscar-winning documentary Icarus and in his latest, The Dissident, his focus is getting to the bottom of how and why Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
“The question became,” he says during Deadline’s Contenders Documentary awards-season event, “how could we really tell…the untold story behind this murder.”
To do so he gained access to audio, video and other materials from Turkey’s investigation into the killing, evidence pointing to a plot allegedly authorized by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Murdered Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi At Center Of ‘Kingdom Of Silence’: “His Life Was Just Epic” – Contenders Documentary
“It just felt absolutely imperative that we had [Turkey’s] participation,” Fogel notes. “That police footage from inside the consulate,...
He exposed Russia’s secret sports doping program in the Oscar-winning documentary Icarus and in his latest, The Dissident, his focus is getting to the bottom of how and why Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
“The question became,” he says during Deadline’s Contenders Documentary awards-season event, “how could we really tell…the untold story behind this murder.”
To do so he gained access to audio, video and other materials from Turkey’s investigation into the killing, evidence pointing to a plot allegedly authorized by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Murdered Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi At Center Of ‘Kingdom Of Silence’: “His Life Was Just Epic” – Contenders Documentary
“It just felt absolutely imperative that we had [Turkey’s] participation,” Fogel notes. “That police footage from inside the consulate,...
- 1/10/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Documentary filmmaker Bryan Fogel has become expert at telling complex stories of international intrigue.
He won the Oscar for his 2017 documentary Icarus, which blew the lid off Russia’s sports doping conspiracy. In his new film, The Dissident, he turns an investigative lens onto the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, allegedly on the orders of the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“Following Icarus, I had actively been trying to figure out…what [my] next story was going to be,” Fogel tells Deadline. “I was looking for something that was going to involve taking on a dictatorship or authoritarian regime, fake news, false information, freedom of speech, freedom of press…Something that had…these thriller elements that was what drove Icarus.”
The Dissident, now playing in select theaters and releasing on VOD platforms today, sheds new light on...
He won the Oscar for his 2017 documentary Icarus, which blew the lid off Russia’s sports doping conspiracy. In his new film, The Dissident, he turns an investigative lens onto the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, allegedly on the orders of the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“Following Icarus, I had actively been trying to figure out…what [my] next story was going to be,” Fogel tells Deadline. “I was looking for something that was going to involve taking on a dictatorship or authoritarian regime, fake news, false information, freedom of speech, freedom of press…Something that had…these thriller elements that was what drove Icarus.”
The Dissident, now playing in select theaters and releasing on VOD platforms today, sheds new light on...
- 1/8/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
“There’s no such thing as a locked picture on a documentary; it’s always a moving thing.” This is how Adam Peters, who composed the original score to the recent doc “The Dissident,” describes the frantic pace that he had to work in order to complete the score as new material was added. In our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video above), one of the closest calls was in advance of the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year. “When we were getting it ready for Sundance, there was stuff going into the movie literally the night before we were doing the final playback.”
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family in October of 2018. The doc also looks at another critic of the Saudi royal family currently living in exile, Omar Abdulaziz, as well as looking...
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family in October of 2018. The doc also looks at another critic of the Saudi royal family currently living in exile, Omar Abdulaziz, as well as looking...
- 1/7/2021
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
It’s strange to conceive of a documentary as an edge-of-your-seat thriller. After all, the events have already passed; moreover, should the events be of recent memory, the viewer should already know how the movie ends. However, Bryan Fogel’s “The Dissident” — a speculative scheme on the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — is stimulating regardless. In this massive multinational drama juggling state politics, cybersecurity, and the urgency of romantic love, “The Dissident” paints a fuller picture of Khashoggi as not just the state actor or the writer, but also as Khashoggi the man.
“The Dissident” opens in Montreal, Canada. Omar Abdulaziz – later revealed to be one of Khashoggi’s correspondents before his death – begins to explain the difficulties of expressing free speech in Saudi Arabia, especially following the rise of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Mbs). The narrative then begins to split into several parallel tales from there.
“The Dissident” opens in Montreal, Canada. Omar Abdulaziz – later revealed to be one of Khashoggi’s correspondents before his death – begins to explain the difficulties of expressing free speech in Saudi Arabia, especially following the rise of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Mbs). The narrative then begins to split into several parallel tales from there.
- 12/30/2020
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a known commodity in the world of international news so it was no surprise when word of his disappearance, presumed death, and confirmed assassination grabbed universal attention. So many questions swirled around the incident from its setting (his country’s consulate in Turkey), involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself, and a seemingly global indifference towards achieving actual justice in lieu of kowtowing to the economic importance of a nation with seventeen percent of the Earth’s petroleum reserves. What should have sparked a galvanizing effort to sanction Mbs and bolster our collective need to protect civil liberties like freedom of speech everywhere proved a tipping point that confirmed the opposite instead. Mbs’s power has grown and fear of his retribution has worsened.
Director Bryan Fogel realizes this truth and knows a film about what happened cannot simply start and end with Khashoggi alone.
Director Bryan Fogel realizes this truth and knows a film about what happened cannot simply start and end with Khashoggi alone.
- 12/21/2020
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
One of the most talked-about documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival back in January was the latest from Bryan Fogel, “The Dissident.” It premiered to universally positive reviews, was acquired by Briarcliff Entertainment for distribution and is now poised to to be major player in this year’s Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature. “The Dissident” is the first film from Fogel since “Icarus,” which won him the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2017.
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family. Khashoggi was forced to flee the country in 2017 following his criticism of how the Saudi government persecuted dissenters. In October of 2018, Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to get documents in relation to his impending marriage to a Turkish citizen but never exited the facility. Hee was assassinated by a hit squad in the consulate and...
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family. Khashoggi was forced to flee the country in 2017 following his criticism of how the Saudi government persecuted dissenters. In October of 2018, Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to get documents in relation to his impending marriage to a Turkish citizen but never exited the facility. Hee was assassinated by a hit squad in the consulate and...
- 10/21/2020
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
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