Prize-winning investigative journalist Etienne Huver presented his new feature doc project Julian Assange: This Is All About You during the recent DocsBarcelona Industry programme.
“Hacker. Whistleblower. Spy? Who is Julian Assange? This is an investigative portrait of the Wikileaks’ founder, nearly imprisoned for life until his unexpected release,” reads the log-line for the project which is produced by Slug News and Federation StudioFrance. Arte will broadcast the film. StudioFrance is also looking after international sales. “The film raises new questions on the future of whistleblowing as we face a world where the truth itself is being eroded with every passing minute,” the logline continues.
Working mainly for French broadcasters Arte, M6, and France Télévision, Huver received the Albert Londres Prize for his documentary Disappeared: The Invisible War of Syria in 2016. Currently he practises his journalistic work to “expose the many untold, unseen unfolding wars, and the victims of these conflicts.”
Huver and producer Marina Ladous were among the small coterie of journalists to interview Julian Assange in 2016 when he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after being accused of sexual assault. “There have been many moments over the past decade when Julian Assange and this saga was one of the most important stories in the world. [But] since his release, especially with everything happening now in [Trump’s] America, there’s a sense that Assange has become yesterday’s news, irrelevant to all the challenges the world is facing today. In fact, it’s only now with the advantage of hindsight that the relevance of the case has become apparent…And there is still so much to tell.”
“When we met Julian Assange in the embassy on April 11th, 2016, we never could imagine what would happen after that. He would be finally arrested three years to the day after our interview – held in a high security prison in London for five more years to face the possible extradition to the USA where he could have been sentenced to 175 years in prison. Julian Assange [was] finally freed in exchange for a guilty plea with American justice.”
The film seeks to answer why Assange was targeted so extensively for years and in such “extreme and absolute ways,” and what it was it about his activities that mobilized governments against him. In answering these questions, Huver was given unprecedented access not only to family members and close relatives, but also to political figures and critics, “including a senior US official who came forward to share insights and information that had never been made public before.”
The director underlines the cinematic aesthetic within the production team’s approach. “It’s a film we really have to release in theatres and screen at festivals as close to the audience as possible. This will spark reflection and dialogue. I remember the impact and the power of Assange when I was a young reporter working for the biggest news radio in France. What remains today in our deeply polarized western democracies in the age of social media? [Julian Assange: This Is All About You] is not just an investigative portrait, it’s really about where we are headed as a society in a world where the value of choice is seriously at risk.”
It was pointed out how, despite Assange’s notoriety for over a decade, kids are growing up with little inkling of his activities and influence.
Huver agreed. “I often go in schools in France and I speak about [Assange] and they don’t know the name sometimes, but when you explain to them all the issues, the big insight of the story, the children are like that[Huver makes a gesture of surprise]. They’re very interested because it’s about the internet and things that they [rogue actors] really manipulate. So we want to make this [film], and it’s very important for us that the new generation can understand the story and all the issues around it.”
Is there a fear that the film could veer into the realm of hagiography, Huver was asked. “The goal is not to do a hero film, it’s to explore all the crucial issues,” he replied. “What is interesting is that Assange was a hacker, a pioneer of the internet, that he was involved in cryptography, he was involved in democracy sometimes for the best… and it can be for the worst sometimes.”
The film is also non-partisan, Huver was at pains to emphasise. “We are totally independent of Wikileaks and it’s very important to understand it. We have a good relation with them. We have a respectful and trustful relation with [them]. We can call with them, but we try to maintain a very distinctive relation and [be] very independent…That was one of the things maybe that is more difficult to do with this film, is to have this distance, to have our own narrative.”
