C – Filmfest DC kicked off last night with the US premiere of Underground: The Julian Assange Story. This is the story of Assange’s early years hacking into US Military websites and accessing top-secret information. The film was decent, the story intriguing, but the bias was clear. Director Robert Connolly looks on Assange as a crusading hero who has been wronged by the establishment. His film reflected that in slow motion, dramatically scored scenes of a SWAT team moving into Assange’s home and taking him into custody. Rachel Griffiths and Anthony Lapaglia were the two big names in the movie and it’s worth a watch as long as you understand whose rearview mirror you are seeing this through.
Big coup for the organizers of FilmFest DC… they got Assange himself on the phone to speak to the audience. Live from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, he talked in circles about transparency and, at times, got things very, very wrong. “Nixon’s reign as secretary of the State Department…”? Yes, he said that. He also spoke in soundbites – “All political theory is bankrupt”, “A mobile phone is a tracking device that also makes calls.” – which is a strategy that has served him well in the press. This is because nothing else he says in between those nuggets makes any sense whatsoever and, honestly, he sounded more like a wackadoo than the hero the film made him out to be.
K: The opening film @FilmfestDC “Underground,” which was about Julian Assange before he became infamous for Wikileaks was an interesting watch. It was a good story but not a documentary. I hadn’t realized that he had been arrested before for hacking into companies and government systems as a teenager but didn’t serve any time. As C said, the story was skewed in Assange’s favour and it made him out to be an activist/journalist who fought for people’s rights through hacking. This didn’t make the movie less interesting although it did “gloss” through many of the events. All of the actors gave a strong performance and the actor who played Assange as a teenager actually looked like it could have been him at that age.
What made the event and movie more interesting is Assange “dialed-in” to chat with the audience and answer questions. During the Q & A he mentioned that he is going to run for office in Australia – not sure how he’s going to do that from the Embassy of Ecuador. He’s also writing another book but was unwilling to share what he was writing about. He also told everyone that their lives were fully transparent due to the usage of the Internet, smart phone and other electronic devices. Overall, through the movie and his discussion, I got the feeling that Assange is a narcissist. I just hope he doesn’t hack any more systems because regardless of what he thinks, there are innocent people that he carelessly hurts or even kills when he releases classified or proprietary information to the public. He just doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know it.
Opening night of Filmfest DC
After party at Bar Louie
Pick up a free program or download it from http://www.filmfestdc.org
Filmfest DC
April 11-21, 2013
Various locations throughout DC
http://www.filmfestdc.org
2GirlsinDC 