Documentary about the assassination Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who disappeared after entering Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. His fiancée and dissidents around the world piece together the clues to a murder and expose a global cover up.
On 2 October 2018, outspoken Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Istanbul consulate to collect documents required for his forthcoming marriage. He never walked out. Fiancée Hatice Cengiz's vigil grew into a politically charged media storm. The hazy circumstances of Khashoggi's disappearance inspired director Bryan Fogel (an Oscar winner for sports doping exposé Icarus) to investigate the murky, propaganda-driven war on truth in Saudi Arabia. A stately drone shot draws us through Montreal to the hotel where exile and activist Omar Abdulaziz battles the troll farms that drown out dissident voices. We learn that Twitter has become the unofficial "parliament of the Arabs", manipulated by a technological army to further the ends of Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman's regime. It was Abdulaziz who convinced Khashoggi to criticise the regime in the Washington Post while newly elected President Trump visited Saudi on his first official foreign tour. The clarity of Fogel's reporting is matched by first-class witnesses from Al-Jazeera and Turkish intelligence, but it is Abdulaziz's testimony and the blood-curdling typed transcript of the murder ("Has the sacrificial victim arrived?") that turns this finger-pointing account into a frightening depiction of power and repression.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Bryan Fogel |
