Based on real events this movie tells the story of the imprisonment of Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste (Richard Roxburgh) for 400 days along with his crew on trumped up terrorism charges during the military overthrow of the elected government and the subsequent crackdown. I remember this at the time and especially they announced live on one of the Chaser shows that he had just been released.

There is some contemporary news audio featuring the voice of Lee Lin Chin and some brief clips but this was shot in Australia as Peter Greste is still wanted for terrorism in Egypt even though his fellow crew have now been pardoned. According to Peter Greste in the Q&A after the movie they knew one of them would be released first and they had promised to campaign for the others’ release.

Zak Hepburn introducing the Q&A

Another question from the audience concerned Julian Assange and the death of journalists in Gaza. Peter Greste said this story is more relevant than ever as more journalists are now imprisoned and being killed while doing their jobs than even at the height of the “War on Terror” after 9/11. The recent banning from the Whitehouse of one news organisation by Donald Trump for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico “The Gulf of America” for instance. The billionaire owner of the Wall Street Journal ordering journalists to not write on certain things.

I can remember in Australia Foreign Correspondent on the ABC and Dateline on SBS both used to go for an hour each but due to subsequent government cutbacks are now only half an hour.

While the story does follow the imprisonment and eventual release of Peter Greste it does cut back and forth to an earlier incident in Mogadishu in 2005 involving the death of BBC journalist  Kate Peyton (Yael Stone). Not sure why they decided to do this apart to add some more weight to the narrative and cut up the prison scenes. They are really two different stories and should be treated that way.

L-R: Peter Greste, Richard Roxburgh, Carmel Travers, Kriv Stenders, Zak Hepburn

Some things do ring true like how useless DFAT actually is if you get into trouble overseas. Sure they can lend you money to get back to Australia or get you a replacement passport, but if you are really in trouble there is not much they can do. I was actually working for DFAT during the recent issues with Southern Sudan, they were able to get travel documents for people who were on the boat in the Red Sea which they claim they normally can’t do but in an actual emergency they can. I can’t really say that much I did not have access to much when I was there I was just a phone jockey and then emails for passports.

Richard Roxburgh does great in this and as he said he is in every scene so there is no hiding for him in this behind the other actors. Peter Greste said he was relieved when Richard told him he was not trying to impersonate him in the movie, more just get the emotion to come through.

The rest of the cast works quite well including all the supporting cast of the Egyptians who are all local actors from western Sydney. I did like the other crew members who get imprisoned with Peter Greste including the one who is always beating him at backgammon, so honest and raw in their performances.

The prison scenes were shot in an abandoned physician hospital in Balmain mainly underground during summer. Peter Greste was impressed how the design was pretty much the same as the prisons in Egypt, that country was an English colony at one point so yeah.

Kriv Stenders said it is usually pretty hard to get the money to make Australian stories to which Carmel Travers said no one told her it was easy enough for her, they got it pretty much straight away when she came on board although the whole process for development of the movie took about three years.

It is interesting to compare this to the movie Cairo Conspiracy that also had to be shot in another country due to the director Tarik Saleh being made persona non grata in Egypt. The movie was mostly shot in Turkey doubling for Cairo around the one mosque so also mainly an internal film in both senses of the word.

Peter Greste is grateful for the platform the movie has given him on speaking out about press freedom and that it is going to get a relatively wide release alongside his book so more people will see it and then go read his book also for more details on the story. I did read the book by the Australian journalist imprisoned in China Bill Birtles and would like to hear what he thinks of the movie.

I would recommend this movie if you are a fan of true stories, world news and politics and the issues around press freedom. With the Australian federal election just being called this week there is never a more important time to see it.

Rating: 5/5

Movie Details:

Director: Kriv Stenders

Writer: Peter Duncan (screenplay)

Producer: Carmel Travers

Story Consultant: Peter Greste

Starring: Richard Roxburgh as Peter Greste, Julian Maroun as Mohamed Fahmy, Rahel Romahn as Baher Mohamed, Mojean Aria as Alaa Abd El-Fattah, Yael Stone as Kate Peyton, Nicholas Cassim as Andrew Greste, Michael Denkha as Farag, Majid Shokor as Judge Nagy, Saif Alawadi as Shady, Pedram Biazar as Sohaib

Cinematographer: Geoffrey Hall

Country: Australia

Length: 1hr 59min

Language: English, Arabic

Trailer: