Clara López Rubio, Juan Pancorbo – Hacking Justice #FIPA2018

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Clara López Rubio and Juan Pancorbo, director and screenwriter of the documentary Hacking Justice.

Director Clara López Rubio and author/screenwriters Juan Pancorbo presented their feature documentary, Hacking Justice, at the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (FIPA) in Biarritz, France, where it had its French premiere. The filmmakers filmed Julian Assange’s ordeal as he was under investigation in the United States for WikiLeaks and wanted in Sweden for alleged sexual offences. Their project began after they began working with Baltasar Garzón, who became assange’s lawyer, and for them it was interesting to work with these two very interesting characters, although they had to overcome a number of challenges and difficulties along the way, which they tell us about in this interview. One of them entailed having to wait around two years before they could film Assange, which was not easy, also because this would be their first feature. They also did not know how the story would develop, or what type of person Assange would be; as Pancorbo tells us “we didn’t know a lot about it – it was a sort of discovery … at the beginning we didn’t known [Assange], we got our information from the media.” This turned out to be “in contrast with the man we met.” One of the opinions on Assange, particularly from the side that disagrees with him, is that he likes the attention; we ask the filmmakers if they thought this was true, especially considering that they were pointing cameras at him for years.

Hacking Justice: Under United States investigation for Wikileaks; wanted in Sweden for alleged sexual offences. Julian Assange finds in Baltasar Garzón the kind of lawyer he needs – someone who can hack the solution to a complex international case in which justice clashes with high-level politics. With privileged access to its protagonists for over three years, this documentary unveils the work of the defence team in a story with deep political implications and the outcome of which will affect the freedom of the press worldwide.