His death shocked the world.
On October 2, 2018, Saudi Arabian journalist and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s frank critic Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated and crashed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. After a cover-up, Saudi Arabia issued a verdict in a secret trial in which Prince Mohammed was acquitted of any wrongdoing. Yet the Central Intelligence Agency and other investigators have concluded that he may have ordered the killings.
Two years later, two new documents remind us that Turkish lawyers – and people close to Khashoggi – are still waiting for justice, hoping it won’t go away. Covering a high-profile case of a subject that completely opposed the Saudi government, it brought challenges for filmmakers both during and after the shooting.
The “Kingdom of Silence”, a showtime documentary featuring Rick Rowley (“16 shots”), opened on Friday, the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s death. (Rarely in the move, Showtime allows non-subscribers to watch for free on the platform and on YouTube.)
The film follows Khashoggi’s career, from his early days as a broad-minded journalist in Afghanistan to his time as a spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s top politician to self-exile and columnist for the Washington Post.
His story is told in the context of American-Saudi relations, with comments from intelligence officials, activists and journalists, including New York-based author Lance Wright (who is an executive producer) and Ali Sofan, a former FBI agent and friend of Khashoggi.
As Ben Kenningsberg wrote in a review for The New York Times, “The film’s primary virtue is that it represents many of Khashoggi’s friends and colleagues who illuminate his ideals, adventures and personal relationships.” Khashogi himself is also present through an archive of archival footage and writing.
Initially, Rowley went out to form a murder mystery. But as he dug ernda, he no longer wanted to investigate who was behind the murder – “It’s no question,” he said – but why it happened.
“Who was this man that the state would take so much risk to keep quiet?” He remembers thinking.
“We were all looking at death,” said Vinnie Malhotra, executive vice president of nonfiction programming at Showtime, following the immediate aftermath of the assassination. “We weren’t investigating life.”
That life was full of contradictions. For example, one of Khashoggi’s friends did not know that his wife was in Washington DC – whom Rowley was interviewing – while another friend did not know about his fianc in Istanbul. And it wasn’t until the later years of Khashogi, the film argues, that he expressed dissatisfaction with the resentment that is known today.
.Lata, this film is a portrait of a long-time insider who had valuable, potentially damaging information. It reveals an unsolved detail: Khashoggi agreed to meet with investigators working with the families of 9/11 victims who sued the Saudi government just before his death. Investigators wanted to discuss the government’s relationship with al Qaeda, but Khashoggi was killed just before the meeting.
The shooting of the film came with challenges. Saudi Arabia denied Rowley’s team a journalist’s visa, so Zuki on a tourist visa fired under the radar. The crew also received threats during the shooting of the film, but Rowley was reluctant to say more.
“You can’t be naive when you start a project like this,” Rowley said. “You’re constantly communicating with people who are self-surveillance targets, or who are working for intelligence agencies, or who could actually be the property of Saudi intelligence.”
Ve Scar-Winner 2017 Documentary “Icarus.” Surveillance is a key story line in Brian Fogel’s “The Accident.” Slated for a theatrical release on December 18, the documentary plays like a thriller: its tight score often blows up an impending doom, and the archival footage is complemented by a computer-generated image.
The film chronicles the last years of Khashoggi’s life, like a young Saudi worker in Montreal and Khashoggi’s friend, a journalist who fled to Saudi Arabia to criticize and pay for his rulers, referring to the last years of Khashoggi’s life.
Their stories gradually connect with each other, especially as one watches a film on the state’s cyber ope operation. Khashoggi and Abdulaziz were both targeted for their rline rhetoric, and Abdulaziz said the royal court hacked their smartphones using the same software used to spy on journalists and activists.
In the days leading up to Khashoggi’s death, he and Abdulaziz were collaborating on a social media campaign.
Last January, the United Nations accused Prince Mohammed of hacking into the cellphones of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and owner of The Washington Post, possibly in an attempt to influence the crucial shield of state outlets. Fogel said he knew the story before it was made public and explored it in his movie to emphasize a chilling point.
“If they use this technology to go after the richest man in the world and be ashamed of it, who will they not go after?” He asked. “Who’s not safe?”
Fogel obtained evidence from Turkish investigators, government prosecutors and government officials and spent considerable time with Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Sengiz. He cuts footage from crime scenes with stories of Sangeetz, who privately shared the voicemail and led Fogel to what the couple’s home was.
The goal was to create an “emotional journey,” Fogel said.
The movie debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and received rave reviews from some critics (and Hillary Clinton). But no major streaming platform has gone after it.
Initial reports speculated that Netflix, Apple Pal and Amazon all had reasons not to buy it. Netflix complied with the state’s request to block the 2019 episode of “Patriot Act with Hassan Minhaj” from streaming in the country, raising the question of whether it would take similar action if it introduced “Disident”. And hacking Bezos’ iPhone affected both Apple Pal and Amazon, which leads it.
Distributor Briarcliff Entertainment will introduce “Disident” in select cities before expanding nationwide early next year. “It’s an important story that needs to be told,” said Tom Ortenberg, chief executive of Brycliffe. “It’s worth seeing on the big screen, and clearly commands.”
Khashogi’s case is still making headlines. Saudi Arabia issued its final ruling in September; Last week, Turkish prosecutors filed a second charge against six suspects; And a human rights watchdog that was the brainchild of Khashoggi was just unveiled in Washington.
“Kingdom of Silence” and “The Accident” will further their story, shed light on lesser known details and act as an action call.
“There’s no justice,” Fogel said. “So I believe this story goes beyond the past.”
