March
07
Tags
THE DISSIDENT
THE DISSIDENT
Director: Bryan Fogel
Runtime: 1hr 59m
Cast: Hatice Cengiz, Jamal Khashoggi, Omar Abdulaziz, John O.Brennan,
Fahrettin Altin, David Ignatius
Synopsis: When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after entering Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, his fiancée and dissidents around the world were left to piece together the clues to a brutal murder and expose a global cover-up perpetrated by the very country he loved.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUruJ44gvSo
From the Academy Award-winning director of ICARUS, Bryan Fogel, comes the neglected story of the murder that shook the world.
Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was critical of his beloved Saudi Arabia and of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies. On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and never came out. His fiancée and dissidents around the world are left to piece together clues to his brutal murder—and in their dogged quest for truth, they expose a global cover-up perpetrated by the very country he loved.
With exclusive access to the Turkish government’s evidence; to Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz; and to Khashoggi’s close friend and fellow Saudi insurgent, Omar Abdulaziz, director/co-writer Bryan Fogel unearths hidden secrets in this real-life international thriller that will continue to rock the world long after the headlines have faded away.
Chillingly powerful and heartbreakingly candid, The Dissident is an intimate portrait of a man who sacrificed everything for freedom of speech.
A cinematic retelling of the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi requires no embellishments. The raw facts are sinister and dramatic in themselves, involving a gruesome killing inside a consulate in a foreign country, an ambitious prince intolerant of dissenters and a kingdom with far-reaching financial clout. Bryan Fogel’s documentary, co-written with Mark Monroe, uses a nerve-jangling score by Adam Hart, searing editing and C.G.I. elements to drive home the horror and pathos of Khashoggi’s story and what it reveals about Saudi Arabia’s insidious machinery of surveillance and repression.
With this compelling and timely film, Bryan Fogel underlines the disregard for human rights when money and geopolitics are at stake.
But even after death Jamal Khashoggi is defying those who sought to silence him forever. Jamal Khashoggi worked courageously for freedom of speech, equality, human rights and democracy and the nightmare of his assassination is a forceful reminder of the fragility of free speech.
Offering little release in its unflinching look at a grisly murder and the lack of justice to its perpetrators – this important and necessary film is a vivid call to action.
The Dissident screenings: Glasgow film festival, 6-9 March, Dublin film festival on 11 March and on digital formats later in the year.
Social Links: https://www.thedissident.film
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Images courtesy of Altitude
