Risk: The film Julian Assange doesn’t want you to see – Stuff.co.nz

STEPHANIE MERRY

Last updated15:07, August 16 2017

Madman Films

Risk is screening as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival

Riskwasn't the movie Laura Poitras expected to make.

The documentarian, who won an Oscar for chronicling Edward Snowden's whistleblowing in Citizenfour,spent years following Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks team starting in 2011, including his right-hand woman, Sarah Harrison, and co-founder Jacob Appelbaum.

But as she filmed, a movie about the dangerous business of disseminating classified information turned into a story about avoiding extradition, not to mention a character study of the highly controversial figure. Assange made waves by releasing the Chelsea Manning-leaked war logs and video of what WikiLeaks called a "collateral murder" in Iraq long before Hillary Clinton partially blamed him for losing her the presidency.

Poitras couldn't have guessed she'd end up capturing footage of Assange sneaking around and donning a disguise in order to seek asylum at London's Ecuadorian embassy. He did so in 2012 after a British court ruled he had to go to Sweden and answer questions about allegations from two women of sexual misconduct, and he's been holed up at the embassy ever since.

Poitras recently talked to The Washington Post:

Risk turned out to be a very different documentary to the one Laura Poitras originally set out to make.

READ MORE: *You are being watched: Attention citizens *Watching the whistleblower: Behind Edward Snowden doco Citizenfour

I'm sure it's not easy for Assange to let people in.

It took time. It's not easy for good reason. They were really under extreme pressure in terms of the U.S. government investigation (for releasing information handed over by Manning).

Starting in 2011, documentarian Laura Poitras spent years following Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks team.

How often were you filming him?

The type of filmmaking I do, verite observational filmmaking I'm interested in when things are happening. So things happening would be like: him going to court or when he was calling the State Department trying to reach Hillary Clinton when they realised that there was a journalist who had published one of their passwords.

That happened when I was in New York, and I got a message from somebody who works with Julian saying, "Something's happening now if you want to get on a plane".I heard about it at noon and I was on a plane by the end of the day. I was in Norfolk (England)24 hours later filming.

The thing to know about Julian is he's trying to protect information. So when he decided to seek asylum, even people on his staff didn't know he was doing that. And he wouldn't tell me; I'd just be there and I'd film and find out later what was happening.

I got into the car thinking we were going to court, and realised that his mom was [in town]. When I walked into the hotel room, I thought we were there just to meet his mom, but then he was changing his appearance and I was thinking, "Okay, what is happening here?"

I liked the occasional first-person narration, which helped explain some of the contradictions about him as a character. At one point you say something like, "I don't know why he's letting me do this. I don't even think he likes me".Why did you decide to include those observations?

I take notes when I'm working and write down ideas and that was coming from what I was writing at the time when I was working on the film. I think it was a way to articulate the contradictions and ambivalence I was feeling and it was also for the audience to have a way to be okay with that. I think the film contains or shows incredible bravery and brilliance and also some disturbing attitude and behaviours.

I understand Assange's not crazy about the movie. Are you in contact at all?

You hear in the film I quote a text that he sent me where he says the film is a severe threat to his freedom and he's forced to treat it accordingly. He sent me that right before a screening we did a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival. I haven't really talked to him since I received that, but my producer has, so we're still in contact. And my producer screened the film for him in early April. I think he's still not happy, and what he's expressed and asked us to do is to remove scenes where he's speaking about the Swedish case, which we haven't done.

Risk(M) is screening as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival. See nziff.co.nz for more information and session times.

-The Washington Post

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