Just days after DreamWorks Studios announced they had begun shooting WikiLeaks-inspired film The Fifth Estate, Julian Assange has condemned the project, calling it a “massive propaganda attack”.
Assange was making a speech at Britain’s Oxford University via video link from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, when he revealed he had acquired a copy of the script and disapproves completely.
“It’s a lie upon a lie. Everything we see, read and hear is produced for a purpose,” Assange told students. “It is not just an attack on us [WikiLeaks] – it is an attack against Iran. It fans the flames to start a war with Iran.”
The Hollywood production, which isn’t due out till November, apparently begins in a military complex in Iran, depicting the building of atomic weapons, when Assange asserts that Iran had no nuclear weapons program and had nothing to do with WikiLeaks.
Directed by Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn mastermind (and we use the term loosely) Bill Condon and starring a peroxide-assisted Benedict Bumberbatch in the lead role, the movie is set to trace the early days of WikiLeaks and the subsequent release of controversial information.
According to Condon, the film “won’t claim any long view authority on its subject, or attempt any final judgement. We hope to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven and enrich the conversation WikiLeaks has already provoked.”
Words by Stephanie Squadrito
Via SMH
