Oliver Stone Supports Julian Assange
The award-winning director and champion of left-wing causes has defended the WikiLeaks founder against two forthcoming films after revealing that he met Assange at his de facto prison in London's Ecuadorean Embassy last week.The award-winning director and champion of left-wing causes has defended the WikiLeaks founder against two forthcoming films after revealing that he met Assange at his de facto prison in London’s Ecuadorean Embassy last week.
Oliver Stone has been a steadfast supporter of Assange for some time. He tweeted a picture of himself with the hacker and activist, saying: “A sad occasion in that Julian could not follow me out the door. He lives in a tiny room with great modesty and discipline.”
In later tweets, the director added: “Strong mind, no sun, friends who visit, work to be done, one documentary coming out from Alex Gibney that is not expected to be kind.”
“Another film from Dreamworks which is also going to be unfriendly … I don’t think most people in the US realise how important Wikileaks is and why Julian’s case needs support.”
“Julian Assange did much for free speech and is now being victimised by the abusers of that concept.”
WikiLeaks recently released a cache of 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic files dating from 1973 to 1976 that are known as “The Kissinger Cables.”
— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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The films criticised by Stone were Alex Gibney’s forthcoming documentary We Steal Secrets, which debuted at Sundance in January, and Dreamgirls director Bill Condon’s drama The Fifth Estate, which stars Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Assange alongside Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie and Peter Capaldi. It is due to be released in the US in November, which suggests an awards-season run in 2014.
Assange himself has attacked The Fifth Estate, which is based on former aide Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website, as well as Guardian writers David Leigh and Luke Harding’s WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy. Speaking via video link to the Oxford Union in January, he labelled it “a massive propaganda attack” that told “lie upon lie”.
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