By Gabriella Vukman
With its premier at the Cameo in Belgrave on Sunday 18 February, the enthralling Julian Assange documentary ‘The Trust Fall’ is making waves worldwide.
In line with Assange’s last chance at avoiding extradition to the US before he is sent to be detained there for the rest of his life, the film is a call to action.
Founder of ‘Films For Change’ and director of ‘The Trust Fall,’ Kym Staton said, “Assange is just the canary in the coalmine in terms of what is going on with our freedoms in the western world.”
Spanning a duration of 130 minutes and starring narrators Susan Sarandon, Roger Waters, Tom Morello and rapper M.I.A, the film is an expose on the “travesties of justice” associated with “the most famous political prisoner,” as Mr Staton explained.
The film has gained traction on social media across various platforms and its GoFundMe has raised $137,000 so far with an aim of $145,000.
Mr Staton said, “press freedom is declining all around the world.”
“There are currently over 500 journalists in prison today for their work and Julian is just one of those over 500,” Mr Staton said.
“If 50 per cent of the population knew what was going on, politicians would just have to do the right thing but because of ignorance, they can continue to hide away from responsibilities and avoid taking action on it.”
The film is an ensemble of animation, archived and ‘never before seen’ footage of Assange and other recent interviews with journalists, activists, avid Assange supporters, government leaders among other high-profile experts.
“I wrote the documentary over around a six week period,” Mr Staton said.
“I had all of these ideas in my head after a year of production, interviews and research so I started a routine of every morning writing a little bit.”
Mr Staton said, “I was sharing my words on social media every day and whichever bits of writing got the best responses, ended up in the film.”
Community cinema is playing a large role in spreading awareness via ‘The Trust Fall’ documentary.
Mr Staton said, “at the moment what we are asking people to do is suggest the film to their local cinema and we’re seeing that work.”
“The first cinema to take up our documentary turned out to be Mareeba drive-in in a small town of 7000,” Mr Staton said.
“We drove 24 hours up there not knowing if anyone would turn up but when we rocked up to the drive in there were 215 people and over 100 cars there – it was full and it was awesome! That told us that it doesn’t matter where we go, there’s going to be people interested in this issue.”
Mr Staton’s passion is education and awareness-building.
“From my perspective the best thing we can do with this film is to raise more awareness,” he said.
“The only way that is possible for an Australian journalist to be kept in solitary confinement for years and years which is essentially torture, is because of a lack of awareness,” Mr Staton said.
“Our aim is to get it out and encourage cinemas everywhere to show ‘The Trust Fall.’
Warning the documentary editors that hacking, limitations and a potential shut down were risks in ‘The Trust Fall’ project, Mr Staton was wary of the project being shut down before its release.
“Thankfully we were able to get the film out, get it classified in Australia and we successfully showed it at parliament house in Canberra,” Mr Staton said.
“I think the reason why we have been able to continue is because the people who are responsible for this persecution and false narrative of Julian Assange are expecting a passive documentary that just covers the ‘what’ and ‘when’, confirming their depiction.
“They will be surprised to view the never seen before footage, especially of the victims of the collateral murder incident which have never been seen before. they are going to realise that this film will rapidly increase opposition to their agenda,” Mr Staton said.
‘The Trust Fall’ is currently showing at various cinemas across the country and donations are still very much welcome.
Mr Staton said, “All the way through the film we hoped that Julian would end up watching it from his sitting room.”
“In the short term I am hopeful that the people that are persecuting Julian do the right thing and let him go free but if it continues to drag on, the film will continue to raise awareness for him as long as he needs it,” Mr Staton said.
“People watching a hundred or thousand years from now can think ‘what were we doing?’ ‘How did we let this happen?’”
Mr Staton confirmed that Julian Assange “is aware of the film” but could not say anything more for confidentiality reasons.
Visit the documentary’s website at: thetrustfall.org
