The film reveals new video footage and shocking revelations surrounding Khashoggi’s death.
Two years after Khashoggi’s murder, the Human Rights Foundation released a new documentary entitled, The Dissident, directed by Bryan Fogel, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker of Icarus. After festival funs, it had a very hard time getting picked-up by any of the major streaming networks. AppleTV was the first to allow the documentary to be sold on its platform, recently followed by Amazon Prime and Redbox.
On October 2, 2018, The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after walking into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The news of his disappearance rocked global headlines as reporters and human rights activists demanded a response from the Saudi government. After numerous conflicting reports from the Saudi consulate and an investigation by the Turkish government, it was concluded that Jamal Khashoggi was, in fact, murdered while in the Saudi consulate.
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Bryan Fogel, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, took on the challenge of cinematically piecing together the events before and after the Khashoggi murder from several different perspectives, including the beloved fiancée and a newly revealed protégé.
The documentary follows the web of lies surrounding the murder and includes unreleased audio transcripts of Khashoggi’s last moments, interviews with the lead Turkish investigators, and profiles of the main suspects involved in the killing of Khashoggi.
Fogel also focuses on the contrast between Khashoggi’s quiet and humble nature in his personal life, and the outspoken dissident journalist that the world knew. The film contains interviews with his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, and reveals recorded love messages that he left for her as well as an inside tour of the home he had purchased for the lovebirds. The documentary also reveals Khashoggi’s upbringing and prominence in the Saudi government and gradual transformation into becoming a dissident and target of the Saudi government.
In an interesting twist, the documentary reveals Khashoggi's young protégé, Omar Abdulaziz, and Abdulaziz's struggle with threats against his brothers from the Saudi government for criticizing the regime. While Khashoggi used traditional journalism to share his criticism of the Saudi government, Abulaziz targeted a younger audience and used social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter to gain a large following. The film also features an interview with the University of Toronto’s The Citizen Lab which discovered that Abulaziz’s had been hacked by the Saudi government. Because of the threats against Abulaziz’s life and his family, he is constantly switching phones and never posts about his personal life.
The film ends with a memorial service for Jamal Khashoggi and his fiancée's plea for justice for his murder.
The Dissident is available for streaming video-on-demand at AppleTV, Amazon Prime, and Redbox.
