John Kiriakou is not well known to every American, but he should be. I regret that I had only a vague idea of who he was until I saw James Spione's extraordinary documentary Silenced, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2014 -- at which point Kiriakou was in jail. He was released last month, having served almost two years in a Federal prison. After seeing the film, I'll never forget him or his story.
Silenced examines the tremendous difficulties -- personal, professional, financial, legal -- faced by three government whistleblowers in the post-9/11 era: Kiriakou, an ex-cia analyst and counterterrorism officer; Thomas Drake, a former Nsa executive; and Jesselyn Radack, an attorney and former ethics adviser to the United States Department of Justice. They are treated as criminals and, in Kiriakou's case, jailed as one. But what if their "wrongs" are based in a defense of the Constitution?...
- 3/5/2015
- by PamelaGrossman
- www.culturecatch.com
"Citizenfour" might be the hottest doc of the fall, and deservedly so, but Edward Snowden isn't the only government whistleblower in town. "Silenced," from Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker James Spione, chronicles the stories of three whistleblowers of the post 9/11 era — Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, and Jesselyn Radack — who faced incredible trials and persecution in response to their standing up for what is both right and constitutional. The film has screened at Tribeca, Hot Docs, AFI Docs and many other film festivals, and today we've got the exclusive trailer for you to check out. The documentary promises a compelling and riveting tale about the troubling innermost, top-secret workings of the U.S. government, shedding light on the experiences of these whistleblowers — whose stories are not as well-known to the general public — who found their lives put under scrutiny as they tried to expose wrongdoing at the highest levels of the...
- 11/20/2014
- by Katie Walsh
- The Playlist
More than 80 documentaries to receive world premieres.
The line-up for the 27th Idfa (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) has been unveiled.
A total of 298 titles, selected from 3,200 submissions, will be screened from Nov 19-30 in Amsterdam - of which 81 will receive their world premiere.
This year, a special themed programme, titled The Female Gaze, is dedicated to the role of women in documentary.
Another strand, Of Media and Men, will focus on how opinions are shaped within a democracy through the media.
This year’s Top 10 is provided by Heddy Honigmann, and a retrospective of her work will also be screening. Her film, Around the World in 50 Concerts, opens this year’s Idfa and also plays in Competition.
Idfa and Eye, the Netherlands national museum for film, will be present a joint themed programme concentrating on hybrid film: Framing Reality.
The festival’s main locations will once again be Pathé Tuschinski, Pathé de Munt...
The line-up for the 27th Idfa (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) has been unveiled.
A total of 298 titles, selected from 3,200 submissions, will be screened from Nov 19-30 in Amsterdam - of which 81 will receive their world premiere.
This year, a special themed programme, titled The Female Gaze, is dedicated to the role of women in documentary.
Another strand, Of Media and Men, will focus on how opinions are shaped within a democracy through the media.
This year’s Top 10 is provided by Heddy Honigmann, and a retrospective of her work will also be screening. Her film, Around the World in 50 Concerts, opens this year’s Idfa and also plays in Competition.
Idfa and Eye, the Netherlands national museum for film, will be present a joint themed programme concentrating on hybrid film: Framing Reality.
The festival’s main locations will once again be Pathé Tuschinski, Pathé de Munt...
- 10/10/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Despite currently serving a thirty-month prison sentence, John Kiriakou’s presence was deeply felt this weekend during Tribeca Film Festival's screening of "Silenced," a documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker James Spione. The film follows Kiriakou’s account of learning of and exposing the CIA’s use of torture as well as his subsequent trial and guilty verdict for disclosing classified files to a reporter. His wife was present at the post-screening panel to read, on his behalf, a statement in which he maintains his unstirred devotion to his country and its democratic ideals.In addition to providing the significant details on his case as well as those of fellow whistleblower Thomas Drake and their legal advisor Jesselyn Radack, the film gives a personal context to the process and aftermath of whistleblowing. It felt fitting, then, to have Kiriakou’s wife become emotional at the letter’s mention of their son’s...
- 4/22/2014
- by Melina Gills
- Indiewire
Top brass at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff) have announced the line-up for the 2014 Tribeca Talks and Tribeca Innovation Week’s four-day Future Of Film series.
The Tribeca Talks panels and events will run during the 13th edition of Tff that runs from April 16-27.
Tff also unveiled four new documentaries that will receive their world premiere at the festival: Now – In The Wings On A World Stage, The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin, Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank and Champs, as well as Food Chains, Supermensch, and the tenth anniversary screening of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Each will screen as part of the Tribeca Talks: After The Movie series.
This year’s series incudes the Tribeca Talks: Directors Series featuring on-stage conversations with Ron Howard and Lee Daniels, as well as Tribeca Talks: Industry Conversations and Tribeca Talks: Pen To Paper exploring subjects related to screenwriting.
“With these talks...
The Tribeca Talks panels and events will run during the 13th edition of Tff that runs from April 16-27.
Tff also unveiled four new documentaries that will receive their world premiere at the festival: Now – In The Wings On A World Stage, The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin, Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank and Champs, as well as Food Chains, Supermensch, and the tenth anniversary screening of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Each will screen as part of the Tribeca Talks: After The Movie series.
This year’s series incudes the Tribeca Talks: Directors Series featuring on-stage conversations with Ron Howard and Lee Daniels, as well as Tribeca Talks: Industry Conversations and Tribeca Talks: Pen To Paper exploring subjects related to screenwriting.
“With these talks...
- 3/17/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Top brass at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff) have announced the line-up for the 2014 Tribeca Talks and Tribeca Innovation Week’s four-day Future Of Film series.
The Tribeca Talks panels and events will run during the 13th edition of Tff that runs from April 16-27.
Tff also unveiled four new documentaries that will receive their world premiere at the festival: Now – In The Wings On A World Stage, The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin, Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank and Champs, as well as Food Chains, Supermensch, and the tenth anniversary screening of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Each will screen as part of the Tribeca Talks: After The Movie series.
This year’s series incudes the Tribeca Talks: Directors Series featuring on-stage conversations with Ron Howard and Lee Daniels, as well as Tribeca Talks: Industry Conversations and Tribeca Talks: Pen To Paper exploring subjects related to screenwriting.
“With these talks...
The Tribeca Talks panels and events will run during the 13th edition of Tff that runs from April 16-27.
Tff also unveiled four new documentaries that will receive their world premiere at the festival: Now – In The Wings On A World Stage, The Rise And Rise Of Bitcoin, Compared To What: The Improbable Journey Of Barney Frank and Champs, as well as Food Chains, Supermensch, and the tenth anniversary screening of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Each will screen as part of the Tribeca Talks: After The Movie series.
This year’s series incudes the Tribeca Talks: Directors Series featuring on-stage conversations with Ron Howard and Lee Daniels, as well as Tribeca Talks: Industry Conversations and Tribeca Talks: Pen To Paper exploring subjects related to screenwriting.
“With these talks...
- 3/17/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced its complete lineup for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. Half the slate had been announced on Tuesday, with Spotlight, Midnight, and Storyscapes films unveiled today, as well as special screenings. “Spotlight and special screenings are an especially dynamic aspect of this year’s program, both in range of styles and stories,” said Genna Terranova, Tribeca’s director of programming. “Many films feature real-life personalities who’ve accomplished extraordinary feats, while in other films we...
- 3/6/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
I was appalled to see the We Steal Secrets documentary portray whistleblowing as something that is deviant
Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is slick and dangerous in the same way Zero Dark Thirty is. People walk away finding it "balanced", and thinking that certain conduct (whistleblowing and torture, respectively) is "bad" or "good". We live in such a perverse moment in society that a film is portrayed as "balanced" when it paints whistleblowing as deviant behavior.
The film takes all the caricatures of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and admitted source Pfc Bradley Manning, exaggerates them, and adds some new ones. The attacks range from the petty (Manning is effeminate and Assange is a hacker-hero enamored with his newfound rock star status), to the simply bizarre (Assange is out to impregnate unwitting women and spread his seed all over the planet) and impossible (during the era of "Don't ask,...
Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney's We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is slick and dangerous in the same way Zero Dark Thirty is. People walk away finding it "balanced", and thinking that certain conduct (whistleblowing and torture, respectively) is "bad" or "good". We live in such a perverse moment in society that a film is portrayed as "balanced" when it paints whistleblowing as deviant behavior.
The film takes all the caricatures of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and admitted source Pfc Bradley Manning, exaggerates them, and adds some new ones. The attacks range from the petty (Manning is effeminate and Assange is a hacker-hero enamored with his newfound rock star status), to the simply bizarre (Assange is out to impregnate unwitting women and spread his seed all over the planet) and impossible (during the era of "Don't ask,...
- 5/30/2013
- by Jesselyn Radack
- The Guardian - Film News
You don't have to be a rightwing wacko or naive lefty to be chilled by some policies and practices of the Obama administration. Nothing illustrates that better than the administration's treatment of whistleblowers who take on the federal government. Robert Greenwald's latest documentary focuses on the brutal fallout faced by four people—Michael DeKort, Thomas Drake, Franz Gayl, and Thomas Tamm—who exposed corruption in branches of the government or corporations working with the government. Though the individual cases are riveting (for the heroism involved) and infuriating (for illuminating the venality of the powers-that-be), what is most sobering about this timely and unsettling film is what it reveals about how thoroughly owned our government is by big business interests....
- 4/19/2013
- Village Voice
Wikileaks' Manning Curiously Missing from Greenwald's Doc About the United States Government's Attacks on Whistleblowers In 2006, after getting stonewalled in his effort to expose critical flaws in the Deepwater program (designed to modernize the Coast Guard fleet), former Lockheed Martin project manager Michael DeKort made his case in a YouTube video. Only then did the issue get noticed, leading to improvements in Coast Guard safety. Pictured above: Thomas Drake, one of the whistleblowers featured in the documentary. It also led to DeKort spending years defending himself from those trying to discredit him. Indeed, this is where Greenwald’s film cashes in on what little indignation it generates. A lone civilian is seemingly no match against deep-pocketed forces that will do anything to protect their interests, even if -- especially if -- the whistleblower’s claims are accurate. Towards the end of the film, Thomas Drake, the former Nsa senior executive...
- 4/13/2013
- by Gary Lloyd
- Alt Film Guide
Nowadays, telling the truth can be dangerous. In his new documentary, Silenced, filmmaker James Spione explores the 'war of whistleblowers' by telling the stories of as four high-profile truthtellers - Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, and Peter Van Buren - who dared to question the nation's post-9/11 national security policy and uffered harsh consequences as a result. Spione, whose Incident in New Baghdad won Best Documentary Short at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and went on to secure an Oscar nomination, needs your help. With the aid of fellow advocate Susan Sarandon (whom he met while they were fellow Shorts jurists at Tff 2012), Spione is making his case for support through a dramatic video that explains the issues at hand, the struggles of whistleblowers everywhere, and how you can help Silenced get the necessary funding to complete post-production through this Kickstarter campaign.
- 2/27/2013
- TribecaFilm.com
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