I was starting to wonder what happened to Laura Poitras’s movie about Julian Assange. Considering all the crappy stuff Assange dredged up this fall during our election, I thought “Risk”– which was previewed in Cannes– would come out and cause a ruckus.
As it happens, I am told that Poitras, the Oscar winning filmmaker of “Citizenfour,” is still working on “Risk” and hoping to have it out in spring 2017. It won’t make Sundance, but could be ready for South by Southwest or the Tribeca Film Festival.
The hold up? Poitras is busy adding all the mishegos from the fall, adding and shaping, so that the amazing elements from “Risk” make sense. In the Cannes version, we saw how Assange slipped out of custody and came to live in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. We also saw Lady Gaga’s extraordinary interview with the scoundrel of leaking. Plus we learned that Wikileaks warned Apple about iTunes being used as a backdoor for infiltration by spies.
Now, of course, Poitras has much to add– like Pamela Anderson visiting Assange at the embassy, the Ecuadorians turning off Assange’s WiFi during the US election, and so on. Plus there were all the document dumps, and Assange’s war on Hillary Clinton. When Poitras is done, “Risk” will be even hotter stuff than it already was.
So we wait til spring. And Assange continues to marinate in his own juices, learning Ecuadorian recipes.
