Hacking Justice

Examining the meaning and significance of the insights that WikiLeaks shared with the world, the resulting behaviour of the governments involved, the extraordinary personal risk taken by Assange, and the wider fundamental issues around press freedom that affect all of us and our right to know.

The campaign to free Julian Assange takes on intimate dimensions in this documentary portrait of an elderly man’s fight to save his son. Arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a figure pretty much everybody has an opinion about; perhaps more importantly, he serves as the emblem of an international arm wrestle over freedom of journalism, government corruption and unpunished war crimes. For his family members who face the prospect of losing him forever to the abyss of the US justice system, however, this David-and-Goliath struggle is personal – and, with his health declining in a British maximum-security prison and American government prosecutors pulling out all the stops to extradite him, the clock is ticking.

What threads of history bind Manhattan's Ground Zero to those of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Or connect sight to truth, games to war, or the silkworm to the drone? What does the United States hold to be the role of science in warfare? How has war historically been waged in Buddhist traditions? These are some of the topics addressed in Eyewar: 80 minutes of found footage which traces the development of the digital image from the maps of the second century to the screens of the twenty-first, and the uses of the field of cybernetics from Japan in the 1940s to Chile in the 1970s and Iraq in the 1990s.

The film tells the story of the rise and fall of Julian Assange. Once a celebrated publicist and over the years decried as an eccentric, spy and rapist. The documentary shows a differentiated picture of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. For the first time in German television Assange’s fiancée gives an interview. Further interviews, amongst others, with former CIA-director Leon Panetta, Edward Snowden and John Shipton.

Sigurdur Thordarson, known as Siggi, becomes a hacker at 12, exposing Icelandic bank corruption at 14. Branded the "teenage whistleblower," he joins WikiLeaks in 2010, mentored by Julian Assange. Siggi leaks globally, but clashes with Assange, prompting him to spy for the FBI at 18. This tale weaves paranoia, hacking, and friendship, portraying Siggi's turbulent journey from trust to betrayal, revealing a heart-wrenching coming-of-age narrative.

Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.

In school, 9-year old Julian gets into trouble for squealing a bully and therefore disturbing class.

Ali is not a citizen. He drives a taxi using another man’s license and relies on the GPS to negotiate his way around a city he doesn’t know. His passenger, Esther is an old woman who can’t remember where she is going. She is angry because she has been stripped of everything that is familiar to her and she doesn't recognise the world anymore. They travel through the night in search of a vague destination while surveillance cameras mark their journey, coldly omitting the human element, defining who belongs and who does not, who is safe and who is not. What they have in common is their damage – she can’t remember and he can’t forget.

The film depicts part of Priest Donizetti Tavares de Lima's trajectory in a little town in the State of São Paulo called Tambaú, where he performed a series of miracles.

Documentary about the increasingly necessary conversation taking place in homes and communities across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police.