President Joe Biden has arrived in London, where he will join other world leaders at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on Monday.
The prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand are already in the UK for the ceremony, but the guest list for the funeral of the world’s longest-reigning monarch is proving to be controversial.
While many of the 500 names of heads of state and foreign dignitaries are as expected – French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier all due to attend – there are some names that have caused a diplomatic headache.
Representatives from Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan have not been invited, while Iran, North Korea (Dprk) and Nicaragua have only been invited to send ambassadors instead of heads of state.
China’s President Xi Jinping was invited, but it will be his Vice President Wang Qishan who attends in his place.
The prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand are already in the UK for the ceremony, but the guest list for the funeral of the world’s longest-reigning monarch is proving to be controversial.
While many of the 500 names of heads of state and foreign dignitaries are as expected – French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier all due to attend – there are some names that have caused a diplomatic headache.
Representatives from Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan have not been invited, while Iran, North Korea (Dprk) and Nicaragua have only been invited to send ambassadors instead of heads of state.
China’s President Xi Jinping was invited, but it will be his Vice President Wang Qishan who attends in his place.
- 9/18/2022
- by Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
An open letter in the Washington Post from the woman who was engaged to slain reporter Jamal Khashoggi is urging Justin Bieber not to play a Dec. 5 show in the kingdom.
Bieber is set to perform in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. He is the headliner among a group of artists performing as part of the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix there.
Hatice Cengiz wrote an open letter headlined “Please, Justin Bieber, Don’t Perform in Saudi Arabia” that ran in the WaPo on Satuday. She urged the Canadian singer to cancel the performance to “send a powerful message to the world that your name and talent will not be used to restore the reputation of a regime that kills its critics.”
A US intelligence report implicated Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Khashoggi’s 2018 murder in Istanbul. The crown prince has denied any involvement. Khashoggi...
Bieber is set to perform in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. He is the headliner among a group of artists performing as part of the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix there.
Hatice Cengiz wrote an open letter headlined “Please, Justin Bieber, Don’t Perform in Saudi Arabia” that ran in the WaPo on Satuday. She urged the Canadian singer to cancel the performance to “send a powerful message to the world that your name and talent will not be used to restore the reputation of a regime that kills its critics.”
A US intelligence report implicated Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Khashoggi’s 2018 murder in Istanbul. The crown prince has denied any involvement. Khashoggi...
- 11/21/2021
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Turkey’s president blew the gaff on how the dissident Saudi author was killed, providing plentiful material for this gripping documentary
It’s not shown in this documentary, but there is a gruesome TV news clip of Vladimir Putin high-fiving Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G20 summit in November 2018. This was two months after the Saudi author and dissident Jamal Khashoggi had been murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, into whose diplomatically protected precincts he had been lured to get documentation for his planned wedding to the Turkish journalist Hatice Cengiz. Some of the arms-trading western nations duly raised their plaintive and transient objections. Putin himself had no such scruples. The high-five sent a gleeful signal.
Saudi Arabia’s state assassination of Khashoggi is of a piece with the Russian-greenlit attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in the UK in March that year and it had something...
It’s not shown in this documentary, but there is a gruesome TV news clip of Vladimir Putin high-fiving Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G20 summit in November 2018. This was two months after the Saudi author and dissident Jamal Khashoggi had been murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, into whose diplomatically protected precincts he had been lured to get documentation for his planned wedding to the Turkish journalist Hatice Cengiz. Some of the arms-trading western nations duly raised their plaintive and transient objections. Putin himself had no such scruples. The high-five sent a gleeful signal.
Saudi Arabia’s state assassination of Khashoggi is of a piece with the Russian-greenlit attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in the UK in March that year and it had something...
- 3/5/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
This is an important documentary that has been avoided for too long. In recounting the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, The Dissident presents a biography of the man, his association with Saudi Arabia, and a thorough overview of the geopolitical forces that caused his tragic death. Directed by Bryan Fogel, it is a very worthy successor to his debut film Icarus, which won Netflix its first Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature back in 2018. Why, then, did this truth-seeking film get ignored?
Fogel had hoped for a distribution deal with one of the streaming giants at Sundance 2020, yet he left Park City empty handed. This was despite an audience that included Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin and Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive. Clearly, Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi was just too hot for the major platforms, whose leaders were more interested in the bottom line than standing up for human rights.
Fogel had hoped for a distribution deal with one of the streaming giants at Sundance 2020, yet he left Park City empty handed. This was despite an audience that included Hillary Clinton, Alec Baldwin and Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive. Clearly, Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi was just too hot for the major platforms, whose leaders were more interested in the bottom line than standing up for human rights.
- 2/24/2021
- by Jack Hawkins
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
For Bryan Fogel, getting access to the transcripts of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey was the result of a long history of trust building with the Turkish government. “It took me a year of—I can’t even count the number of meetings with Turkish government officials back and forth between Istanbul and Ankara,” the director of “The Dissident” tells Gold Derby in our Meet the Experts: Documentary panel (watch above). He received the transcripts only a month prior to the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and required another six months of work to properly insert them into the final cut. Fogel also remembers how shocking it was “to see what appears to be the joy that these assassins are taking in murdering Jamal, dismembering him and there’s a real pride of work and there’s many types of...
- 1/28/2021
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
When Bryan Fogel set out to make “The Dissident,” his intrepid and arresting exposé on the assassination of Saudi Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, he knew there were myriad security risks involved. There was the matter of Khashoggi’s killing—a brutal one, his body sawed into parts—at the hands of a Saudi murder squad, a death that US intelligence agencies have determined with a high degree of certainty was ordered by the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. But there was danger lurking around every corner of this high-octane thriller, one that sent a shiver of terror down the spines of not only career journalists, but human rights activists and political dissidents globalwide. Fogel, a cinematic troubadour in the dogged pursuit of truth, was undeterred. Armed with exclusive access to Turkish criminal files, he embarked on a daring quest to unveil all facts in the...
- 1/27/2021
- by Malina Saval
- Variety Film + TV
The acclaimed documentary “The Dissident” investigates the 2018 assassination of acclaimed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He went into self-imposed exile in 2017 and began writing for the Washington Post. He visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018 to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz but never came out. This Briarcliff Entertainment release is a red-hot contender for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.
Oscar-winning actor/activist Sean Penn recently interviewed “The Dissident” director Bryan Fogel after a special digital screening. Penn also had planned to do a documentary on the murder — they were actually in Istanbul at the same time interviewing Cenzig and others. But he abandoned the project when he when he learned that Fogel, whom he admires, was also making a documentary.
Fogel told Penn that after “Icarus,” his Oscar-winning 2017 documentary about the Russian sports doping scandal,...
Oscar-winning actor/activist Sean Penn recently interviewed “The Dissident” director Bryan Fogel after a special digital screening. Penn also had planned to do a documentary on the murder — they were actually in Istanbul at the same time interviewing Cenzig and others. But he abandoned the project when he when he learned that Fogel, whom he admires, was also making a documentary.
Fogel told Penn that after “Icarus,” his Oscar-winning 2017 documentary about the Russian sports doping scandal,...
- 1/18/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
This past September, a Saudi Arabian court commuted the death sentence of five unknown people who had been convicted of the brutal slaying of acclaimed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a well-respected critic of the Saudi government and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi, who went into self-imposed exile in 2017 and began working for the Washington Post, visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018 in order to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz. He never came out.
The Saudis said he was murdered in a “rogue operation” at the consulate. But tapes and transcript of the murder reveal something far more heinous happened to Khashoggi: He was restrained after a violent struggle, drugged and then dismembered. His remains were handed over to a “collaborator” outside of the consulate. Eleven unknown people were put on trial by the Saudis. Besides the men who had their death sentences commuted,...
The Saudis said he was murdered in a “rogue operation” at the consulate. But tapes and transcript of the murder reveal something far more heinous happened to Khashoggi: He was restrained after a violent struggle, drugged and then dismembered. His remains were handed over to a “collaborator” outside of the consulate. Eleven unknown people were put on trial by the Saudis. Besides the men who had their death sentences commuted,...
- 1/18/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Bryan Fogel’s “The Dissident” was too hot to handle.
The documentary about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist and political activist who was allegedly killed in 2018 on the orders of the Saudi Royal Family, was one of the hottest films at last year’s Sundance. It had glowing reviews, a ripped from the headlines subject, and a big-name director in Fogel, fresh off the Oscar-winning “Icarus,” a penetrating look at Russian doping that got the country banned from the Olympics.
And yet, Netflix, which had previously released “Icarus,” and other streaming services such as Apple and Amazon steered clear of “The Dissident.” Without any interested buyers, the film languished until last fall. That’s when Briarcliff Entertainment, an obscure distributor run by former Open Road CEO Tom Ortenberg, announced it would release the movie on-demand.
Fogel thinks the subject matter was too explosive for bigger companies, which have...
The documentary about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist and political activist who was allegedly killed in 2018 on the orders of the Saudi Royal Family, was one of the hottest films at last year’s Sundance. It had glowing reviews, a ripped from the headlines subject, and a big-name director in Fogel, fresh off the Oscar-winning “Icarus,” a penetrating look at Russian doping that got the country banned from the Olympics.
And yet, Netflix, which had previously released “Icarus,” and other streaming services such as Apple and Amazon steered clear of “The Dissident.” Without any interested buyers, the film languished until last fall. That’s when Briarcliff Entertainment, an obscure distributor run by former Open Road CEO Tom Ortenberg, announced it would release the movie on-demand.
Fogel thinks the subject matter was too explosive for bigger companies, which have...
- 1/15/2021
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Documentary filmmaker Bryan Fogel has become expert at telling complex stories of international intrigue.
He won the Oscar for his 2017 documentary Icarus, which blew the lid off Russia’s sports doping conspiracy. In his new film, The Dissident, he turns an investigative lens onto the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, allegedly on the orders of the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“Following Icarus, I had actively been trying to figure out…what [my] next story was going to be,” Fogel tells Deadline. “I was looking for something that was going to involve taking on a dictatorship or authoritarian regime, fake news, false information, freedom of speech, freedom of press…Something that had…these thriller elements that was what drove Icarus.”
The Dissident, now playing in select theaters and releasing on VOD platforms today, sheds new light on...
He won the Oscar for his 2017 documentary Icarus, which blew the lid off Russia’s sports doping conspiracy. In his new film, The Dissident, he turns an investigative lens onto the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, allegedly on the orders of the kingdom’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“Following Icarus, I had actively been trying to figure out…what [my] next story was going to be,” Fogel tells Deadline. “I was looking for something that was going to involve taking on a dictatorship or authoritarian regime, fake news, false information, freedom of speech, freedom of press…Something that had…these thriller elements that was what drove Icarus.”
The Dissident, now playing in select theaters and releasing on VOD platforms today, sheds new light on...
- 1/8/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
“There’s no such thing as a locked picture on a documentary; it’s always a moving thing.” This is how Adam Peters, who composed the original score to the recent doc “The Dissident,” describes the frantic pace that he had to work in order to complete the score as new material was added. In our recent webchat (watch the exclusive video above), one of the closest calls was in advance of the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last year. “When we were getting it ready for Sundance, there was stuff going into the movie literally the night before we were doing the final playback.”
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family in October of 2018. The doc also looks at another critic of the Saudi royal family currently living in exile, Omar Abdulaziz, as well as looking...
“The Dissident” details the targeted assassination of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi ruling family in October of 2018. The doc also looks at another critic of the Saudi royal family currently living in exile, Omar Abdulaziz, as well as looking...
- 1/7/2021
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a known commodity in the world of international news so it was no surprise when word of his disappearance, presumed death, and confirmed assassination grabbed universal attention. So many questions swirled around the incident from its setting (his country’s consulate in Turkey), involvement of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself, and a seemingly global indifference towards achieving actual justice in lieu of kowtowing to the economic importance of a nation with seventeen percent of the Earth’s petroleum reserves. What should have sparked a galvanizing effort to sanction Mbs and bolster our collective need to protect civil liberties like freedom of speech everywhere proved a tipping point that confirmed the opposite instead. Mbs’s power has grown and fear of his retribution has worsened.
Director Bryan Fogel realizes this truth and knows a film about what happened cannot simply start and end with Khashoggi alone.
Director Bryan Fogel realizes this truth and knows a film about what happened cannot simply start and end with Khashoggi alone.
- 12/21/2020
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Before the pandemic hit, Oscar-winning director Bryan Fogel’s latest documentary “The Dissident” about the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was one of the hottest films at Sundance. But months later it couldn’t find a buyer, and the director now accuses Hollywood of “fear” and “cowardice” for not giving the film a platform.
The premiere of “The Dissident” in Sundance was attended by Hillary Clinton and Alec Baldwin, among many others. But TheWrap previously reported back in March that Hollywood had shunned the documentary for fear of backlash from the Saudi Arabian government.
Though it was finally acquired by Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment in September, Fogel said in an interview with TheWrap that not one of the major streamers or distributors “stepped forward” to acquire the film because of the influence that Saudi Arabia has over the entertainment business.
“In terms of the major streamers, it was across the board fear,...
The premiere of “The Dissident” in Sundance was attended by Hillary Clinton and Alec Baldwin, among many others. But TheWrap previously reported back in March that Hollywood had shunned the documentary for fear of backlash from the Saudi Arabian government.
Though it was finally acquired by Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment in September, Fogel said in an interview with TheWrap that not one of the major streamers or distributors “stepped forward” to acquire the film because of the influence that Saudi Arabia has over the entertainment business.
“In terms of the major streamers, it was across the board fear,...
- 12/4/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
This past September, a Saudi Arabian court commuted the death sentence of five unknown people who had been convicted of the brutal slaying of acclaimed Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a well-respected critic of the Saudi government and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi, who went into self-imposed exile in 2017 and began working for the Washington Post, visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, 2018 in order to obtain papers to marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz. He never came out.
The Saudis said he was murdered in a “rogue operation” at the consulate. But tapes and transcript of the murder reveal something far more heinous happened to Khashoggi: He was restrained after a violent struggle, drugged and then dismembered. His remains were handed over to a “collaborator” outside of the consulate. Eleven unknown people were put on trial by the Saudis. Besides the men who had their death sentences commuted,...
The Saudis said he was murdered in a “rogue operation” at the consulate. But tapes and transcript of the murder reveal something far more heinous happened to Khashoggi: He was restrained after a violent struggle, drugged and then dismembered. His remains were handed over to a “collaborator” outside of the consulate. Eleven unknown people were put on trial by the Saudis. Besides the men who had their death sentences commuted,...
- 11/5/2020
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of Saudi Arabian dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on Friday demanded justice and urged action to shed light on his assassination during a special hearing at the European Parliament.
The hearing in Brussels, where U.S. director Bryan Fogel’s documentary “The Dissident” screened, marked the two-year anniversary of the day Khashoggi walked into the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to complete paperwork for his marriage to Cengiz and never walked out.
“It has been two years, and we could not get justice for Jamal,” Cengiz said at an online press conference following the screening. She also underlined that basic questions around who killed the journalist and where his body is located still haven’t been answered two years later, though there has been a trial in Saudi Arabia that in September reached a verdict, convicting eight people of murder with varying jail sentences.
Besides having “tried to...
The hearing in Brussels, where U.S. director Bryan Fogel’s documentary “The Dissident” screened, marked the two-year anniversary of the day Khashoggi walked into the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to complete paperwork for his marriage to Cengiz and never walked out.
“It has been two years, and we could not get justice for Jamal,” Cengiz said at an online press conference following the screening. She also underlined that basic questions around who killed the journalist and where his body is located still haven’t been answered two years later, though there has been a trial in Saudi Arabia that in September reached a verdict, convicting eight people of murder with varying jail sentences.
Besides having “tried to...
- 10/2/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Patrick Melrose producer Two Cities Television and Spotlight producer Topic Studios have partnered to bring a drama based on the life and death of Jamal Khashoggi to the small screen.
The two companies have optioned Jonathan Rugman’s The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi, which is published this month by Simon & Schuster.
It comes a year after Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Eye In The Sky writer Guy Hibbert has come on board to adapt the book, which includes interviews with the likes of Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz as well as access to the Turkish investigation.
The rights were picked up from James Carroll at Northbank Talent Management.
Two Cities Television is a BBC Studios-backed firm run by Michael Jackson, the former President of Programming at USA Entertainment, Chairman of Universal Television and President of Programming for Iac,...
The two companies have optioned Jonathan Rugman’s The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi, which is published this month by Simon & Schuster.
It comes a year after Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Eye In The Sky writer Guy Hibbert has come on board to adapt the book, which includes interviews with the likes of Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz as well as access to the Turkish investigation.
The rights were picked up from James Carroll at Northbank Talent Management.
Two Cities Television is a BBC Studios-backed firm run by Michael Jackson, the former President of Programming at USA Entertainment, Chairman of Universal Television and President of Programming for Iac,...
- 10/3/2019
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
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