Two months ago, the Hollywood Reporter announced that actors Alex Williams, Rachel Griffiths, and Anthony LaPaglia had signed up for the lead roles in an Australian TV movie, “Underground,” about Julian Assange’s experiences as a teenage computer hacker. Now Jan Krüger, a producer working with German director Cyril Tuschi, has released details about Tuschi’s look at the recent history of WikiLeaks’s embattled editor-in-chief.
According to Krüger, who was interviewed by Screen Daily, Tuschi’s film, titled “Leaks – Three Dates With Harry Harrison,” will filter Assange’s activities and ordeals through three “romantic” liaisons. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the whistleblower’s amatory life is the source of his Shakespearean tragic flaw, or his Achilles heel.
“Cyril came up with the fact that Assange had been involved in Internet dating using the screen name of Harry Harrison,” Krüger told Screen’s Martin Blaney. “So the film recounts three dates with ‘Harry Harrison’ taking place in 2010. One date is in Iceland when he was establishing an organization that would change journalism, democracy, and the Internet. Then we jump to the second date with a fan in Sweden where he is the man of the moment and feted like a pop star.
“We are interested in the fact that, from an early age, this character had always wanted to change the world and was constantly on the move with his mother in Australia to get away from [his] stepfather,” Krüger continued. “As a 15-year-old, he had stood up to his stepfather as a symbol of authority. This is something like a common thread in ‘Harrison’’s s life.
“Finally, there is an Internet date in a manor house in London, with ‘Harrison’ all by himself wearing an electronic tag.” This date is “with a woman journalist who reflects on where he has ended up.”
“The film will chart the rise and fall of someone who pits themselves against authority, a Robin Hood of the digital age who stumbles over his own personality.”
Seeking political asylum in Ecuador, Assange recently broke bail to take refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy (opposite the Harrods department store) in Knightsbridge in London. Should he set foot outside the embassy, he will be immediately arrested by the police as having set foot on British territory. He was arrested in 2010 because Swedish authorities want to question him about allegations of rape and sexual molestation.
Assange fears that if he enters Sweden, he will be extradited to the United States where he would likely face espionage and conspiracy charges for WikiLeaks’ publication of secret US military and diplomatic documents. He had said he will cooperate with Swedish police if it is guaranteed that he would not be extradited to America. A number or prominent Republicans have called for Assange’s assassination.
Tuschi’s previous film was a documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the martyred Russian oligarch who was sent to Siberia and is currently incarcerated in a labor camp near the Finnish border, pending release in 2017. Whether or not it comes up to date, his Assange film will need to handle its Swedish section with sensitivity and, like the Khodorkovsky film, broach the issue of human-rights abuses.
“Leaks,” which will be shot in Germany, will star a British or Australian actor. Filming is set for next summer.
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