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The 1990s was a golden era for paranoid conspiracy thrillers, with many of them tapping into people's distrust of the government and authorities. From "Clear and Present Danger" to "The Fugitive," the decade spawned a slew of flicks about seedy cover-ups and innocent folks being wrongfully accused of crimes they didn't commit, resulting in some edge-of-the-seat entertainment that gave movie fans some food for thought. One of the best of the bunch, the Tony Scott-directed "Enemy of the State," sees Will Smith and Gene Hackman (who might have reprised his character from "The Conversation") play underdogs who join forces to take down corrupt politicians and the National Security Agency -- and it almost received a television spin-off.

In the movie, Smith plays Robert Clayton Dean, a lawyer who sets out to expose the truth behind a Congressman's assassination. In short, the official was whacked by his political opponents in the Nsa over a bill,...

A Russian official stated that the nation is willing to give Tesla CEO Elon Musk political asylum during his feud with President Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, Musk went on X to criticize Senate Majority Leader John Thune‘s (R-South Dakota) plan to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” a tax proposal that economists warn could increase the United States’ deficit by $4 trillion by July 4.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” the billionaire wrote on his social media platform. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

“It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt,” he mentioned in another post.

Trump replied to Musk’s remarks on X on Truth Social, saying that the Tesla CEO “just went Crazy.

Social media lit ablaze Friday after footage of journalist Glenn Greenwald performing intimate acts leaked online. In a statement released on X, Greenwald confirmed it was him in the videos, saying it was released “without my knowledge or consent” and that the motive was a “maliciously political one.”

Greenwald, 58, was a litigation attorney who transitioned to online journalism with his blogging on national security issues in the aftermath of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. He shot to international attention in 2013 with a series of reports at The Guardian based on information from National Security Agency intelligence contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents on global surveillance programs.

Greenwald was part of a team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the coverage in 2014. He co-founded The Intercept in 2014 with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras — who helped break the Snowden story — until his resignation in 2020 over what...

Eugene Jarecki’s “The Six Billion Dollar Man” plunges into the digital rabbit hole that is Julian Assange and his creation, WikiLeaks. This is not a hagiography, nor is it a simple condemnation; rather, it’s a sprawling chronicle of a man who became a symbol, a cypher, and eventually, a highly sought-after commodity in the global chess game of information control.

The film attempts to untangle the myriad threads of Assange’s story – the meteoric rise, the shadowy machinations of state power, and the fundamental, almost quaint, questions about what a society has a right to know.

It’s a narrative thick with the metallic taste of modern espionage and the disquieting hum of servers holding inconvenient facts. Jarecki, with a documentarian’s zeal, charts this complex territory, aiming for a definitive statement on an era where secrets became weapons and transparency, a battleground.

From Digital Upstart to Global Agitator

WikiLeaks,...

Buffalo 8 Buys Comedy-Drama ‘Beyond The Likes’ – Cannes

Exclusive: Buffalo 8 Distribution has acquired comedy-drama Beyond the Likes at the Cannes Film Festival. Set in Chicago in 2008, it stars Matt Rife (Wild ‘n Out), Don Benjamin (Him), Terrance J (Think Like a Man), Stephanie Nur (1883), Andrew Bach (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) and George Lopez (George Lopez) and follows five friends navigating adulthood and stumbling upon the formula to become the world’s first influencers. When Cam (Benjamin), the group’s aspiring model, meets wealthy Abu Dhabi heiress Nefertari (Nur), their instant connection leads to a clash of cultures. Rhyan Lamarr is the director and Adam Key (NCIS: Los Angeles) is the writer. Shooting took place in Abu Dhabi, Chicago and L.A., with Elijah Long and Qais Qandil the producers. Grady Craig, Buffalo 8’s President, negotiated the deal and is an exec producer along with Buffalo 8 co-founders Matthew Helderman and Luke Taylor.

The saga of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has dragged on long enough, and complicatedly enough, to render a number of past films about him, if not obsolete, clear period pieces. Documentaries like Alex Gibney’s 2013 “We Steal Secrets” and Laura Poitras’ 2016 “Risk,” both produced during the Obama era, are informed by a very different political climate from the one we’re in now — while neither could have anticipated how the Australian editor and activist’s legal difficulties would escalate in the years to come. With Assange finally freed last year after 12 years of confinement or outright imprisonment in the U.K., the time feels right for an expansive catch-up on the whole knotty affair: Enter Eugene Jarecki’s plainly presented but detail-packed documentary “The Six Billion Dollar Man,” which premiered at Cannes (with Assange himself present) in the festival’s Special Screenings program.

Beginning with the founding of initially modest...

Unless you followed the ups and downs — well, mostly the downs — of Julian Assange’s life over the past 15 years, you’ll have to wait until the last half-hour of Eugene Jarecki’s new documentary, The Six Billion Dollar Man, to understand what its title means.

By that point, the WikiLeaks founder had been holed up for over six years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he faced imminent arrest by the UK authorities. It’s then that we learn how the first Trump administration offered, via the Imf, to loan Ecuador’s government $6.5 billion if they agreed to kick Assange out. The move is not exactly shocking, especially coming from a dealmaker like Trump, and it shows just how much the U.S. authorities were willing to pay so they could nab one of their most wanted men.

Much of Jarecki’s jam-packed and informative two-hour feature, which...

Cannes film festival

Focusing on the rogue’s gallery of hypocrites and crooks surrounding him, Assange himself is in the background of a pretty definitive examination

Julian Assange sits at the centre of this gripping account of the WikiLeaks founder’s rise, fall and protracted seven-year limbo inside the Ecuadorian embassy. Eugene Jarecki’s documentary takes its title from the price the incoming Ecuadorian government supposedly charged the Trump administration for helping furnish his extradition to the US, thereby reneging on a promise of political asylum. If The Six Billion Dollar Man doesn’t rebuild Assange, exactly, that’s because it’s more interested in comprehensively demolishing his enemies. Compared to the hypocrites, scoundrels and crooks who surround him, the man himself looks almost virtuous.

Actually Assange is mostly a background presence here. He’s more talked about than talking up; a karmic victim of his own success. While even...

He didn't have a lead role in Gone in 60 Seconds, but Timothy Olyphant was front and center for a good portion of the movie. The action heist movie from 2000 was a loose remake of the 1974 flick of the same name and starred Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall, and a diverse ensemble cast.

Cage played Randal "Memphis" Raines, a reformed car thief who gets pulled back an auto-theft ring to save his brother, Kip (Ribisi), after he was kidnapped. As Memphis returns to boosting cars, the appearances of his former love interest, Sara "Sway" Wayland (Jolie), Sphinx (Vinnie Jones), and Otto Halliwell(Duvall) as well as the Detectives Castlebeck and Drycoff (Delroy Lindo and Olyphant) both complicate and help him in his efforts.

Gone in 60 Seconds has become a cult classic, albeit one the critics did not like. With its lackluster Rotten Tomatoes score and negative reviews aside,...

Tulsi Gabbard — the one-time Democratic representative turned Fox News pundit and Trump loyalist — is the latest of the president’s Cabinet picks to clear the confirmation process despite a lack of qualifications and uniquely troubling views. Gabbard will serve as his Director of National Intelligence, a position in which she will oversee more than a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Nsa, and will be responsible for Trump’s briefings on classified intel.

The Senate advanced Gabbard’s nomination in a Monday vote along party lines, 52-...

Donald Trump nominated a troubling collection of loyalists to occupy some of the most consequential administration positions. Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for Director of National Intelligence, is uniquely concerning. The former Democratic congresswoman served overseas but has no intelligence experience, has been criticized for meeting with since-deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has a history of pushing Russian propaganda.

Gabbard’s confirmation prospects have grown increasingly dubious in light of some of the reporting that has emerged since her nomination. ABC News reported last month that she regularly consumed and...

Even to the supremely cynical, it was striking to see the most recognizable billionaire leaders of Silicon Valley seated together at an event ahead of the second inauguration of President Donald Trump on Monday. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Alphabet (Google‘s parent company) Sundar Pichai, and Apple chief executive Tim Cook rubbed elbows before Trump was sworn into office — the first three companies had each donated $1 million to his inauguration fund, while Cook had personally chipped in another million. They were joined by Trump megadonor Elon Musk,...

Amazon is getting into business with Melania Trump. And Brett Ratner.

The studio has confirmed that its Prime Video has exclusively licensed an upcoming documentary film on the former and incoming first lady that will be directed by Ratner. A studio spokesperson calls the film “an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look” at the first lady and third wife of Donald Trump.

The film will receive both a theatrical and streaming release and will be participatory in every sense given that Melania Trump will executive produce alongside New Element Media’s Fernando Sulichin. Filming began in December 2024, one month after former President Donald Trump won a decisive victory to return to the White House.

Amazon is planning a release in the second half of 2025.

Perhaps the most controversial element of the new project involves Ratner, who hasn’t worked on major Hollywood productions since 2017, when the “Rush Hour” helmer was accused of sexual...

Since Joe Rogan left reality TV and sitcoms behind, he has become so rich that fans want to know how much he pays his staff. The way Joe did that was by launching his podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," interviewing stars like Post Malone, and gaining millions of listeners.

Many of Joe's fans still loved him after he called out The Big Bang Theory and criticized Taylor Swift in ways that outraged her fans. However, even though Howard Stern defended Joe and Jon Stewart had his back, he has also lost and angered some of his followers. For proof of that, all anyone has to do is look at the fact that some of Joe's fans questioned whether he was "insincere" on his podcast.

Some Joe Rogan Fans Think He Is Being "Insincere" Because He "Panders" To His Guests

Throughout the history of "The Joe Rogan Experience," people have listened...

Listen to this amazing list of names: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to direct Anne Hathaway in a new film for Rian Johnson's production company, based off an idea at least partially invented by Natasha Lyonne. Oh, and it's a thriller about Artificial Intelligence — because, truly, what's scarier (existentially speaking at least) than AI right now?

According to an exclusive report from Deadline, the as-yet-untitled film was co-written by Gordon-Levitt and Kieran Fitzgerald, who wrote the 2016 film Snowden. Gorden-Levitt, you may remember, played the titular whistleblower, Edward Snowden, in the Oliver Stone film. Fitzgerald also wrote and created the Peter Sarsgaard-starring miniseries Wormwood. Both share their 'story by' credit, however, with Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne, though there are no details in the reporting about how all of this came to be.

Anyone else wish they could have been a fly on the wall of the conversation that brought...

Today, Goalhanger announces the launch of its next new release of 2024: The Rest Is Classified on Nov 27th. This captivating and insightful series plunges listeners into the secretive world of espionage, spies, and covert operations.

Hosted by two experts with unparalleled access and experience—David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and bestselling spy novelist, and Gordon Corera, a veteran national security journalist who has covered the field for decades—the show provides a unique and authoritative look into the shadowy realm of global intelligence.

The series will uncover the murky and often misunderstood world of international espionage. Drawing from their extensive backgrounds, McCloskey and Corera tell the hidden stories behind Intelligence operations, and the ever-evolving role of espionage in shaping global politics. Episodes will take listeners into the real world of espionage, from the stories behind today's headlines to those that have remained classified for decades.

https://www.youtube.

Chris Carter sat down for an interview to talk about his show’s return in 2016. While there were a lot of things that he had to keep in mind while bringing the show back, an important part of the process was keeping in mind the political climate of the the time, which was late 2015-early 2016.

The X-Files || Credit: Fox

While talking about the manner in which the public has come to engage with the government at the time of the interview, Carter contrasted how his generation dealt the politics of his time, especially the Watergate Scandal, and how today there is a fear to speak out against institutions that people have become disillusioned with.

Chris Carter believed that the state should keeps secrets and whistleblowers should be protected The X-Files || Credit: Fox

When Chris Carter asked about how the political and cultural landscape had changed since the show first aired,...

Wow, November got here fast. This year’s election cycle seemed shorter than usual. The presidential candidates were all but a foregone conclusion, until they weren’t. Now with election season finally here, things continue to be tense. Are smooth transitions between administrations a thing of the past, or has the fever from last cycle broken?

Despite the strange reality we live in now, politics have always been fertile ground for nerve-fraying anxiety. Whether that’s the paranoia of being under the all-seeing eye of the Nsa today, the tragedy of the assassinations in the 60s, or the scandals of the 70s, politics have never been for the faint of heart. Struggles for power rarely are.

Here’s some of our favorite political thrillers to put you in the right mood for election season:

War Room

For better or for worse, the documentary War Room defined ‘90s politics. Unlike the ‘80s,...

Joe Rogan issued a rare statement about the behind-the-scenes negotiations for a podcast guest, posting a comment about why Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t appeared on his show.

Rogan says Harris’ team wanted Rogan to fly out to New York to interview the presidential candidate and that their interview would be restricted to one hour.

“For the record, the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast,” Rogan said in a comment on X. “They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin. My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”

The update comes a week before the general election...

Matt Damon redefined the action genre for the better part of a decade when he starred as Jason Bourne in the Bourne film franchise. The actor played the amnesiac spy in the first three films of the franchise and then returned for the fifth one, replacing Jeremy Renner. Damon’s first three films had collectively earned more than $945 million worldwide.

Apart from giving the world the annoying shaky cam-quick cut action trope, Damon’s films reportedly inspired action star Sylvester Stallone to take a major decision. The actor/filmmaker reportedly changed the rating of The Expendables 3 to PG-13 as he wanted to reach a larger audience like the Bourne films.

Sylvester Stallone Was Inspired By Matt Damon’s Bourne Films Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum | Credits: Universal Pictures

Matt Damon’s Bourne franchise introduced the world to the shaky-cam action choreography trope that many films still use. Starting with The Bourne Identity,...

In 2018, journalist Brian Reed faced a lawsuit over his most celebrated project. S-Town, a podcast he had hosted and executive produced, had become a near-instant sensation the previous year, breaking listenership records, earning lofty praise and sparking debate around issues of consent and privacy for its deceased subject. Then the Peabody Award-winning series was hit with a claim from the estate of the podcast’s subject that alleged a violation of Alabama’s right of publicity law.

“In order to win their case, [the complainants] had to argue that S-Town wasn’t journalism, legally,” says Reed. “And it put me in a position of having to think about what journalism is in a very elemental way that I had never done before.”

The lawsuit eventually settled in 2020, with the executor stating the estate no longer had any issues with the podcast. But Reed kept pondering questions that arose during the saga. The...

Eddie Murphy returns as Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, joined by a star-studded cast including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Judge Reinhold, and Kevin Bacon. The long-awaited fourth installment follows Foley as he teams up with his daughter and ex-boyfriend to uncover a conspiracy in Beverly Hills. Netflix produced the film, which has a reported budget of $150 million, making it one of their most expensive movies.

Eddie Murphy is back as the character that made him a star in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and hes got a great supporting cast backing him up, featuring both returning icons like Judge Reinhold and fresh faces like Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The long-awaited fourth installment in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise sees Detroit cop Axel Foley returning to Beverly Hills after his estranged daughters life is put in danger. He teams up with his daughter, her ex-boyfriend, and his old Beverly Hills P.D.

John Oliver is making good on his promise to release a complete season of Last Week Tonight each week the show is dark this season.

As of 11pm Et Sunday, the show’s complete second season is now available for free on YouTube in the U.S.

Among the season’s most memorable episodes were Oliver’s introduction of Phillip Morris mascot “Jeff the Diseased Lung”, and episode 25, about televangelists, in which Oliver hired a tax lawyer to help him create his own tax-exempt megachurch.

But Season 2’s most infamous episode is probably episode 8, “Government Surveillance,” in which Oliver traveled to Russia to interview Edward Snowden, unbeknownst to anyone—including his bosses at HBO.

Last month’s drop of Last Week Tonight’s first season marked the first time that complete episodes of the show were made available for viewing in the U.S.

Continue reading <i>Last Week Tonight</i> Season 2 Lands on YouTube at LateNighter.

At the Libertarian National Convention on Friday, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed his opponent, Donald Trump, in his hour-long speech to the party’s voters. Kennedy criticized Trump’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kennedy, who is firmly anti-vax, blamed the former president for closing down businesses and violating individual liberties by enforcing mask mandates.

Kennedy Jr. also criticized Operation Warp Speed, a federal program to develop Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic. Trump announced the program in May 2020 and has previously taken credit for his efforts to distribute a vaccine. Kennedy claimed Trump “caved into bureaucrats,” insinuating Trump’s efforts were another political ploy.

“He got rolled by his bureaucrats. He caved in, and many of our most fundamental rights practically disappeared overnight,” Kennedy said. Kennedy received a standing ovation for his comments.

Trump will address the Libertarian convention in his Saturday speech to its voters.

Brainy political lightning rod Oliver Stone isn’t making feature films anymore. Sure, he’d love to add a 21st to his 20 films to date; he just can’t find backers. His alternate route, like many other directors today, from fellow Cannes entrant Ron Howard (“Jim Henson: Idea Man”) to Martin Scorsese, is documentaries.

Stone has churned out a career total of ten, including recent 2021 Cannes entry “JFK Revisited” (Showtime) and 2022 eco-doc “Nuclear” (Abramorama). His latest, “Lula,” marks a move to the left from his much-criticized recent portraits of dictators such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro (HBO’s “Comandante”) and Russia’s Vladimir Putin (Showtime’s four-part “The Putin Interviews”).

Since his start as a filmmaker in the 1970s, the Yale-grad-turned-Vietnam-vet, now 77, has leaned into political fiction, from “Salvador,” “Wall Street,” and “W.,” to Best Director Oscar-winners “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” His last Oscar nomination came in 1996, for “Nixon,...

Oliver Stone is in Cannes today for a Special Screening of Lula, a documentary he co-directed with Rob Wilson about the unbelievable comeback of Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. The film chronicles his extraordinary journey in 2022 to regain the Brazilian presidency after spending 19 months in prison. This happened after a hacker exposed a conspiracy meant to take down the labor leader in a corruption scandal that tied back to Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and the most powerful judge in the country. It’s a story you have to see to believe.

Here, Stone discusses his film, and how the four-time Oscar winner hopes to mount one final major drama after a career spanning Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street, JFK, Natural Born Killers and so many others. He also revisits his position on Vladimir Putin, whom he interviewed extensively several years ago, in light of...

The campaign of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that a fundraising email labeling the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendants as “activists” was a mistake.

These emails, which were sent to Kennedy’s supporters last week, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a “political prisoner” and suggested that he and Capitol rioters were victims of an “outrageous miscarriage of justice.”

“Rarely do opposites attract, especially in Washington,” the email stated. “Yet regarding the case of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is facing extradition to the U.S., both hard-right Marjorie Taylor Greene and hard-left Ilhan Omar Agree: We Must Free Assange Now!”

“The Brits want to make sure our government doesn’t kill Assange,” the letter claimed. “This is the reality that every American Citizen faces – from [Edward] Snowden to Julian Assange to the J6 activists sitting in a Washington D.C. jail cell stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”

Kennedy...

The South by Southwest debut of “Stormy” was not your typical Imagine Documentaries premiere.

About adult film star Stormy Daniels’ alleged affair with former President Donald Trump, the film drew an eclectic crowd that included porn stars and “Muppet” director-producer Frank Oz, who sat in the same row as Daniels and her entourage made up mainly of buff bodyguards. Dogs sniffed Austin’s Stateside Theater prior to the screening. After it unspooled, Daniels spoke to the SXSW audience, revealing that she first met “Stormy” exec producer Judd Apatow when he hired her for a small part in his 2005 film “40 Year-Old Virgin.” When she was a no-show due to a death in the family, Apatow sent her flowers and rescheduled her shoot date.

“I thought he would replace me,” Daniels, who would go on to appear in “Knocked Up” for the filmmaker, told the crowd, with director Sarah Gibson standing nearby.

For director Laura Poitras, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed represents a departure of sorts. After centering films around people ranging from a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden in The Oath to Edward Snowden in Citizenfour and Julian Assange in Risk, her latest documentary focuses on an artist: legendary photographer Nan Goldin. But there’s still a strong political dimension to the film, since Goldin was a major force in bringing down the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma, one of the global pharmaceutical companies largely responsible for the opioid epidemic in the United States.

It’s a deeply personal mission for Goldin, as someone who found herself addicted to OxyContin for a period of time until she nearly died from an overdose. Goldin’s activism, though, is, the documentary suggests, born out of not just her brush with the opioid crisis, but from a lifetime of dealing with mental illness,...

American translator Reality Winner is probably better known in Europe than the U.S., thanks in part to Tina Satter’s extraordinary arthouse film Reality (2023), which dramatized the 25-year-old Texas translator’s arrest in 2017 using the verbatim transcripts of her interactions with the FBI.

Winner, a funny and surprisingly powerful biopic directed and cowritten by Susanna Fogel, will go quite a long way towards raising her profile back home.

By no means as controversial as previous whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange — all she did really was photocopy a piece of paper and send it to a fringe-left website — Reality Winner somehow became a punching bag for the American government, and the disproportionate punishment for her crime could give this film traction in an election year that is being fought more than ever before on a battlefield where principles are the first casualty.

You wouldn...

A Compassionate Spy is a documentary that chronicles the life of Theodore Hall, an American physicist involved in the creation of atomic bombs during World War II who secretly provided information to the Soviet Union. It features interviews with his closest friends and his wife, Joan, who stuck with him during his espionage efforts. The documentary explores the emotional strain it caused Joan Hall when she and Ted were followed by the FBI. She shares how Ted would signal to her that they had a tail and expresses fears about their social circle's reaction if they were arrested. A Compassionate Spy offers a fresh perspective on the Manhattan Project by focusing on Ted Hall's efforts to ensure a balance in the world's possession of atomic bomb technology. It highlights his complex motivations behind his actions and the dedication of his wife, Joan, amidst the risks they faced.

Learn the...

Reality Winner has been out of prison since June 2021, but she’s still under lockdown. The whistleblower’s travel is confined to the Southern District of Texas and she must abide by a 10 p.m. curfew. If all goes according to plan — and it really, really hasn’t for most of her hellish ordeal — her probation will be lifted Nov. 24. And right now, she’s cautiously optimistic. The 31-year-old is hard at work on her memoir, was recently the subject of the critically acclaimed HBO movie Reality with actress Sydney Sweeney playing her,...

Among the treasure trove of damning government documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 that exposed the Nsa’s vast surveillance activities was one that detailed a secret U.K. program known as Phantom Parrot. It allows authorities to stop people entering the country in order to download their personal data from their phones and other electronic devices, even without their knowledge.

It’s also the title of Kate Stonehill’s debut feature documentary, which premieres in the Zurich Film Festival’s Border Lines sidebar. “Phantom Parrot” traces the case of U.K. human rights activist Muhammad Rabbani, who was found guilty in 2017 of a terror-related crime for refusing to provide his passwords to police at London’s Heathrow Airport under Britain’s Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Rabbani is the international director of advocacy group Cage, which assists individuals who have been affected by state policies related to the so-called “war on terror.

A few years ago, producer Michael Cash had an idea he thought could be big. Cash is based in New York’s Hudson Valley, a region rich in Bob Dylan history. Early in the pandemic, he got to thinking about a relatively obscure Dylan-related project from the mid-2010s: Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, in which artists like Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, and Rhiannon Giddens recorded songs based on newly uncovered Dylan lyrics.

Cash, whose background is largely in hip-hop, was friendly with the album’s producer,...

Documentary producer dedicated to using non-fiction storytelling to bring about change on many vital issues

Jess Search, who has died aged 54 of brain cancer, did much to shape and inspire the world of documentary film. With the colleagues who had joined her in creating the non-profit organisation Doc Society, she sought to harness the power of non-fiction storytelling to bring about change on such issues as the climate crisis and defending democracy.

The many dozens of films she funded, advised, mentored, distributed, produced or executive produced include Citizenfour (2014), about the whistleblower Edward Snowden; Virunga (2014), on protecting gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo; The Look of Silence (2014), recalling the murder of a million supposed communists in Indonesia in the mid-1960s; Knock Down the House (2019), following the campaign in which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the House of Representatives; Cow (2021), a portrait of bovine life on the farm; and the...

Following the release of Christopher Nolan's smash hit Oppenheimer, another smaller film looks to explore another controversial figure aboard the Manhattan Project. A Compassionate Spy from Academy Award-nominated Hoop Dreams director Steve James is a documentary about Theodore Hall, a young physicist who fears a future of nuclear annihilation and begins passing information to the Soviets to help tip the scales and prevent a U.S. atomic bomb monopoly. Despite being morally-conflicted colleagues, Hall and J. Robert Oppenheimer are vastly different people in James's eyes. Speaking to Collider's Chase Hutchinson, the director compares his subject to Nsa whistleblower and U.S. defector Edward Snowden.

Tributes paid to influential co-founder of Doc Society, who ‘lived a life of purpose on her own terms’

The influential documentary producer Jess Search, who co-founded the non-profit Doc Society organisation, has died of brain cancer at the age of 54.

She was involved in hundreds of projects including the overfishing documentary The End of the Line, the gorilla protection film Virunga, and the Oscar-winning Citizenfour, about the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Jess Search, the veteran documentary producer and co-founder of the nonprofit film foundation Doc Society in the U.K., has died. She was 54.

Search died Monday in London after a short battle with brain cancer that began with a diagnosis in June, Doc Society announced in an Aug. 1 letter.

“As a fierce supporter of independent artists and co-founder of Doc Society, Jess spent the weeks following her diagnosis focused on her passions laid out in her recent announcement, No Time Like The Present,” which first revealed her brain tumor discovery, Doc Society said.

“Her greatest wish was to continue to secure the Doc Society mission of unleashing the transformational power of documentary film to address the two critical and intertwined issues of climate change and democracies in crisis.”

Films the Doc Society has helped finance include the Oscar-nominated Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, Virunga, Whose Streets, Hooligan Sparrow, The Square and The Look of Silence.

Jess Search, a British documentary veteran who co-founded the Doc Society, died July 31 of brain cancer. She was 54.

Search’s death was announced in a Doc Society statement yesterday, which said she had died peacefully surrounded by the love of her life Beadie Finzi, their children Ella and Ben, and friends.

The statement called Search a “beloved partner and parent, a brilliant friend, an industry catalyst, master campaigner, consummate producer, preternatural public convener, and mentor to many.”

“Jess leaves a global family who we know will continue to speak out on injustice, challenge the status quo and live lives of purpose with love in their hearts,” it added. “We consider ourselves to be ‘Lucky F***ers’ to stand beside all of you.”

Search announced that she had a brain tumour several weeks ago, at which point she unveiled the Independence Project – a global research project to “fully articulate the unique and vital contribution to society,...

Greta Gerwig's Barbie features a diverse range of Kens with unique personalities and charm, each going on their own personal journeys of self-discovery. The movie addresses important themes like gender inequality, the patriarchy, depression, and finding one's purpose, adding depth to the story of Barbie. From Earring Magic Ken to Sugar Daddy Ken and Kenmaid, the different versions of Ken in Gerwig's Barbie bring their own flair and contribute to the overall narrative.

Warning: spoilers for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie.Greta Gerwig’s Barbie not only features a variety of Barbie dolls but also different Kens, each one with his own personality and a lot of charm. One of the most anticipated movies of 2023 is Gerwig’s Barbie, which took Mattel’s famous doll to tell a story about growing up and finding your own purpose and path, while also addressing issues like the patriarchy, gender inequality, depression,...

That you should never meet your heroes, as they are bound to disappoint you, has become such conventional wisdom that it requires no author to affirm it. In a 2020 satirical New Yorker article, Alex Witt attributed the proverb to the faceless “they” (“They say, ‘Never meet your heroes,’ ” adding, “It’s good advice. I’ve met all of my idols, and I’ve been disappointed by every single one”). Some internet pages attribute the quote to the British comedian Alan Carr after meeting Paul Newman, though that appears more apocryphal than reliable.

Reality, the HBO biopic starring Sydney Sweeney, depicts the true story of whistleblower Reality Winner, and the actual events of her life are as fascinating and distressing as the ones shown in the movie. Reality is the first movie by playwright Tina Satter, and it follows the title character after she has released secret government documents to the press. With the plot in media res, the action starts with Reality being confronted by FBI agents with a search warrant. During the investigation, Reality converses with Agent Taylor (Marchánt Davis) and Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton), and the transcript of what they say to each other overlays the rest of the movie.

Reality is a tense, claustrophobic, one-room "bottle" movie that does an admirable job of showing both sides while hinting at how Reality Winner’s rights may have been violated in an intimidating environment. The film has a 97% critic score on...

While series star Matt Damon may not have cared for The Bourne Ultimatum’s script upon the sequel’s release, time has been kind to the spy thriller. Geopolitical thrillers tend to age poorly. The rapid pace of world events means that movies that had their finger on the pulse of current events upon their release can become cringe-worthy and outdated within a few years, while themes that may have once felt perennially relevant and timeless can end up dating a movie horribly when its plot proves less prescient than expected.

However, this is not always the case. While all the Jason Bourne movies set a high standard for spy thrillers, the third installment of the paranoid post-9/11 espionage franchise has aged better than any of its other outings. This is ironic because, while The Bourne Ultimatum was a critical hit upon release, its messy production process was marred by a lot of behind-the-scenes reshuffling.

Exclusive: When Emmy-nominated EP Christian Beetz set out to explore the story of disgraced former Spanish King Juan Carlos I, he could never have imagined the “nightmare trip” that followed.

As Sky and NBCUniversal Global Distribution prepare to unveil Juan Carlos: Downfall of the King at Mip TV, Beetz revealed to Deadline that he believed he and his production team were being followed and their conversations listened to during the making of the four-parter last year.

“After doing our first round of interviews with journalists we got an anonymous call saying ‘Be careful what you’re doing here’,” he told us. “This was the start of a nightmare trip.”

Beetz believes his emails were being read and phone was being tapped, and his team started taking precautions, including placing their phones in the fridge – a move made famous by Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden.

“When these things are happening you know...

Seoul, April 13 (Ians) The Supreme Court here ruled on Thursday that Google must disclose the list of personal information it has shared with third parties, including United States intelligence.

In 2014, four South Korean activists filed a lawsuit against the global tech giant and its local affiliate, Google Korea, demanding to know whether their personal information had been shared with a third party.

Under South Korean law, online service providers must respond to a customer’s request to disclose any record of their personal data being shared with a third party, reports Yonhap news agency.

An appeals court had earlier partially sided with the plaintiffs but ruled that Google has the right to reject the demand on issues that can be kept private in accordance with the relevant US laws.

The Supreme Court, however, partially overturned the previous rulings and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial.

More often than not, an internationally known freedom fighter will have a personality and temperament as heroic as the actions that made him famous. Just look at Nelson Mandela, Alexei Navalny, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or — as controversial a figure as he remains — Edward Snowden, who for 10 years has conducted himself as a profile in courage. But there are times when the personal and the political don’t sit so easily in the same person.

Julian Assange is one of those people. From the moment he launched WikiLeaks, the renegade website that provided an anonymous home for journalists and whistleblowers to spill the secrets and dump the documents of global power, there was an air of absolutism about him, a bombs-away belief in the rightness of his actions that teetered, at times, into anarchistic recklessness. Assange, like Snowden, exposed important revelations about how governments, in particular the government of the United States,...

If you're like me, you've been anxiously compiling a list of all your returning and potential new appointment TV shows coming up in March. "The Mandalorian," "History of the World: Part II," "Shadow and Bone," "Yellowjackets," "Riverdale" — it's enough to make me grateful I've yet to get into either "Perry Mason" or "Ted Lasso," both of which are also coming back that month. There is, of course, another series making its much-anticipated return in March, but we'll get to that later ... in case you couldn't guess what it is from this article's header image alone.

In other words, there will be plenty of other shows to help fill the spot that Pedro Pascal's Joel and Bella Ramsey's Ellie have come to occupy in your heart these past two months. Everyone's new favorite feel-bad post-apocalyptic prestige drama, "The Last of Us," will cap off its freshman run mid-March, by...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an American actor, filmmaker and musician known for his roles in numerous popular films. He made his acting debut as a child in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001) and rose to fame as an adult in movies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Lookout (2007), 500 Days of Summer (2009) and Inception (2010). He also starred in 50/50 (2011) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Depositphotos

In addition to being an accomplished actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is also a successful director and producer. He founded HitRecord, an online collaborative production company which has produced multiple award-winning short films. His directorial debut, Don Jon, was released in 2013 to critical acclaim. In 2014, he starred in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For and earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his role as Edward Snowden...

A good conceit can go a long way. In 2017, a former U.S. Air Force member-turned-Nsa translator named Reality Winner leaked a document to The Intercept exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. On June 3rd of that year, two FBI agents appeared on her lawn and began questioning her. She didn’t ask for a lawyer and, after roughly 90 minutes, was arrested. In Reality, directed by Tina Satter from her own acclaimed play Is This a Room, that transcript is performed to the letter. Then a curious kind of alchemy occurs: as the actors laser-in on the transcript’s every detail, Satter’s fascinating film moves away from the rhythms of political thriller and into the eerie realm of the uncanny.

The neatest title at last year’s Berlin Film Festival was Cyril Sachaubin’s Unrest. If there was an award for such things, this year’s...

“Do you have any pets?” When the FBI called at Reality Winner’s Georgia home in June 2017, the agency didn’t exactly start out playing hardball; in fact it, took the better part of hour even to start getting down to brass tacks with the 25-year-old. We know this because the whole event was recorded on a hidden wire and transcribed as evidence for Winner’s subsequent trial. New York director Tina Satter first fashioned this transcript, with zero embellishment, into a critically acclaimed stage play called Is This a Room in 2019, and in Reality, which premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand, she expands it into an astonishingly effective docu-drama hybrid.

Reality Winner’s misdemeanor didn’t quite put her in the league of Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, and, in a way, Satter’s film leans into that. Many know the name, and perhaps also the...