Exclusive: A Family's Fight for Justice, Ithaka Premiered at the Randwick Ritz [updated]
A Family's Fight for Justice, Ithaka Premiered at the Randwick Ritz
[Image: a screen capture from the official trailer for Ithaka. A link to the trailer is provided at the top of “Sources” below].
Publication date: 2021-11-09
Update: 2021-11-15: Minor update of a name of an interviewee in the two video reports to include a veteran Australian journalist whose name I could not recall at the time of writing.
Update 2022-07-10: Craig Murray has penned an article which directly addresses the film. It is added to sources.
Update 2022-10-17: Ithaka received a standing ovation at the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin. Evidence of this, in the form of a tweet with video, has been added.
YesXorNo for the News That is Not
Ithaka, an entrant for the Sydney Film Festival's documentary prize, debuted at the independent Ritz Cinema in Randwick, Sydney, on Sunday 7th November, 2021. The documentary weaves the personal narratives of Julian Assange's family members calling for people to support the human and legal rights of their son, brother or groom to be against the persecution layed upon him by four nation states. The film is directed by Ben Lawrence who won the Sydney Film Festival's documentary prize for his debut film Ghosthunter in 2018. Original music for the film is composed by Brian Eno.
The story begins when Julian is manhandled out of Ecuador's embassy in London on April 11th 2019 after Ecuador had canceled his granted political asylum and denied his granted citizenship, both without any legal recourse provided.
The film's producer Gabriel Shipton, brother to Julian and also a son of the film's main character, John Shipton, says that the film is about a father's fight for his son. He hopes that through seeing a 76 year old man's courage and resilience we can all connect with our own agency to act on and advocate for our principles. The film also documents the challenges faced by Stella Moris, Mr Assange's fiancée, and that of their children Gabriel and Max.
The personal stories of the family members are woven around the extradition hearings heard at London's historic Old Bailey court, made even more famous by the venerable BBC series, Rumpole of the Bailey. Existing reports of the hearings echo scenes from the fictional series of a calmly furious Horace before Judge Bullingham.
Former Foreign Minister and Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, attended the debut and called for Australia's current Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to demand that the USA drop the extradition request, citing that Julian's "crime" is publishing evidence of real war crimes by the party seeking extradition. Speaking in support of Mr Assange at the event was David McBride, a former Australian military lawyer who exposed other war crimes committed by members of the Australian military in Afghanistan. The debut was also attended by some well known media personalities and film actors, including Hugo Weaving who described the film as "profoundly moving". He referred to the film as covering important topics of “press freedom and democracy” and encouraged “everyone [to] go and see it”.
Outside the cinema a leading advocate for the Doctors for Assange coalition, clinical psychologist Dr Lissa Johnson, gave a powerful speech bringing the topic of the film into stark focus:
It is a disturbing sign of the times that any father would have to be devoting his time to defend his son's right to tell the truth. We all raise our children to believe that telling the truth is right and that killing is wrong. Yet here we are living in a world where those who do the killing are above the law and those who tell the truth about it are punished and persecuted; Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, David McBride, Steven Donziger. ... The case against Julian Assange is all about creating a world were those in power can kill and destroy, and do it in secret, and do it with impunity, and crush anyone who tries to hold them to account.
While Justice must be blind, this film offers a chance for viewers to see and feel the energy and resilience harnessed by a family against injustice delivered upon a beloved family member. Just as Rumpole shooed away legal technicalities and played to the sentiments of the jury, this films asks us to go beyond constructed narratives and let our hearts connect with the reality of the human, familial experience behind that which UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, characterized as a travesty of justice.
Ithaka’s public release is scheduled for January 2022. Tickets for viewing before general release can be obtained through the Sydney Film Festival website. The festival continues from November 3rd to 21st.
That Which Was Not
The above is a report which cannot be found in Australian media. There are no reports at all of Ithaka's premier in Australian on-line print media. NONE. Thus, I claim “Exclusive”. There is one report, by 2SER Radio, in which Gabriel is interviewed about the film. The interviewer mentions that she, and her producer, had seen the film (i.e attended the debut). Such is the film’s impact that they organised an interview to be broadcast the next morning.
A survey of reportage on the film and its debut, ignoring a few links to locked pages (The Daily Telegraph, and Facebook), is astonishingly scant. Pre-premier, 5 articles can be found at film related sites, or one by a major Sydney newspaper. Post-premier there are only 3, Consortium News, Ruptly and 2SER. (All found non-locked references to the film sorted into pre and post premier can be found below in sources.)
While I have only seen the trailer, I can guess some of the footage to be seen, though have no idea as to how the director has composed them into the narrative. John and Gabriel have toured the USA and many countries in Europe. They, and Stella were in London for the Magistrate's hearing at the Old Bailey. The trailer shows some scenes of John at home, some of the European tour, and some outside the court. We can thus expect a mixture of scenes from the personal in a residential setting and public ones in cities in the USA and Europe as father and fiancée attempt to create sufficient public and political pressure to save a family member from the oppression of a cabal of states.
Nils Melzer, UN Rapporteur on Torture (and degrading treatment) has said that he had never seen a collection of states collude to oppress a single individual before he examined Julian Assange's case. Another of his admissions is that he himself had been poisoned by the media's character assassination of Julian and this had influenced his initial choice to not examine the case. This partially explains his vociferous support for Julian's human and legal rights and his denigration of the abuse thereof by those states (USA, UK, Sweden and Ecuador). Guilty by omission is, of course, Australia which wholly deserves the premier of this film to be happening in its most famous city.
It is shameful that reference to the film premier can neither be found at the Sydney Morning Herald, the dominant broadsheet newspaper in the city in which the event occurred, nor at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is left to Consortium News, a USA based independently funded news publisher (founded by the late Robert Parry) and Ruptly, the video arm of Russia Today, and now this little newsletter to cover the event.
In the two video reports (all linked below) one sees interviews or speeches involving:
Bob Carr, former long term Premier of New South Wales (of which Sydney is the capital) and Australian Foreign Minister
David McBride, ex-military lawyer who blew the whistle of war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan
Gabriel Shipton, brother of Assange and the film's producer
Dr Lissa Johnson, a clinical psychologist and member of Doctors for Assange
Quentin Dempster, veteran Austalian journalist
Hugo Weaving, well known Australian Actor
It is easy to complain about cowardice. Where is the New South Wales minister responsible for Arts and Culture, or their Federal counterpart? Perhaps its better to praise the gumption of those who were there. Well done, Messrs. Carr, McBride, Dempster and Weaving. Lissa Johnson's speech, captured in the Consortium News report, is magnificent. Its fierce calm burns brighter than all the rest.
There are narratives to be woven, just from the event itself. Mr Carr speaks of Julian being persecuted for publishing evidence of war crimes committed by the USA in Iraq, and you have Mr McBride who exposed the same by Australian troops in Afghanistan supporting the persecuted publisher. Can't some journalist in Sydney complete the "drawing by numbers" page given to them?
Update
Ithaka received a standing ovation at the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin, October 2022. The director of the festival commented that she had not seen this during her 5 years of running the event.
Sources
Ithaka, Official Film Trailer, Vimeo
Ithaka, Sydney Film Festival
Post Premier
WATCH: CN Covers Assange Movie Premiere in Sydney, Consortium News, 2021-11-08
Australia: Assange documentary 'Ithaka' premieres at Sydney Film Festival, Ruptly, 2021-11-07
‘ithaka’: Julian Assange’s Brother Speaks Out, 2SER’s Willy Russo interviews Gabriel Shipton, 2SER (Radio, Australia), 2021-11-08
Ithaka, Craig Murray, his website, 2022-07-10
Pre Premier
Saving Julian Assange: Meet the people closest to the Wikileaks founder, Karl Quinn, Sydney Morning Herald, 2021-07-13
ITHAKA - World Premiere at SFF, Reviews by Judith (and friends), 2021-10-14
‘Ithaka’ (Trailer), If, 2021-10-28
‘Ithaka’ Julian Assange Documentary Premieres At Sydney Festival, James Carter, Editorials 24, 2021-11-04
‘Ithaka’ Julian Assange Documentary Produced by His Brother Launches at Sydney Festival, Katherine Tulich, Variety, 2021-11-04
Note: there were some other links, but they were just copy-paste republications of the above (with no attribution either).
Locked Links
The Daily Telegraph (newspaper), Facebook
Culture
During the 2SER interview, Gabriel mentions the inspiration for the name of the film. It is this poem.
For the family, a “place in time” song “Do You See What I See” by Hunters and Collectors. It was released in 1987 ahead of the album “What’s a Few Men?”.
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