One of documentary-making’s shock troops, We Steal Secrets’ Alex Gibney is unafraid tometaphorically kick the odd door down or chuck a stun grenade through a door or two to get his story. Behind him are hard-hitting exposés of capitalism run amok (Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room), political scandal (Client 9: The Rise And Fall Of Eliot Spitzer) and shocking torture programmes (Taxi To The Dark Side).
Next up is the mesmerising story of Julian Assange, a Shakespearean figure for our times, with We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks. But is he Mark Antony or Coriolanus? Here’s the film’s new trailer to give a taster of what Gibney has turned up.
Look out for a parallel-lives treatment of the Aussie provocateur and his close associate, US army private Bradley Manning, the young soldier whose distribution of reams of classified documents represented one of the most serious data breaches in diplomatic history. There are zero Ferrero Rocher out there for either of those two.
Assange, still taking refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, is a fascinating subject for any film. Make that, films. The second, a dramatised version starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange, is getting a UK release under the title** The Fifth Estate** later this year.
**We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks **is out in a cinema near you on July 12. Google it.