[Ithaka the documentary produced by the WikiLeaks founder’s half
brother offers a close-up look at one of the world’s most famous
political prisoners. Ithaka stresses that if Assange is extradited to
America, supporters fear he’d face extremely harsh conditions. He
would also become the first journalist ever convicted under the
draconian Espionage Act, a blow against journalism, transparency, and
democracy. ]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

FILM REVIEW: ‘ITHAKA’ MAKES A PERSONAL APPEAL TO FREE ASSANGE  
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Ed Rampell
March 1, 2023
The Progressive
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_ 'Ithaka' the documentary produced by the WikiLeaks founder’s half
brother offers a close-up look at one of the world’s most famous
political prisoners. 'Ithaka' stresses that if Assange is extradited
to America, supporters fear he’d face extremely harsh conditions. He
would also become the first journalist ever convicted under the
draconian Espionage Act, a blow against journalism, transparency, and
democracy. _

Julian Assange's father John Shipton.,

 

Director Ben Lawrence’s award-winning _Ithaka_
[[link removed]], released in theaters March
1, takes viewers behind the curtain into the ongoing struggle to
prevent Julian Assange, arguably one of the planet’s most famous
political prisoners, from being extradited from the United Kingdom.
Assange faces espionage charges in America for exposing U.S.
atrocities and classified information. 

Assange mostly appears on screen in archival footage, news clips, home
movies, and phone calls, since shooting for the documentary began
after the _WikiLeaks _founder was forcibly removed from his refuge
inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London and held in Britain’s
maximum security Belmarsh Prison. 

Those calls are generally with Stella Moris, Assange’s attorney and
wife, with whom the _WikiLeaks_ publisher has two
children. _Ithaka _focuses on Stella, along with Assange’s
seventy-seven-year-old father, Australian John Shipton, who has flown
to England (and later to New York) to play an active part in the
quixotic crusade to prevent his son from being extradited. They are
joined onscreen by Julian’s younger half-brother, Australian
filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, who worked on films such as 2015’s _Mad
Max: Fury Road _and is a producer of _Ithaka_.

The film, which is named after John Shipton’s favorite poem
[[link removed]],
takes us inside the movement to free Assange. We get up close and
personal with John, who was largely estranged from Assange until the
latter was in his twenties. John often comes across as a cranky
contrarian with personal issues, who somehow manages to rally and rise
to the occasion while suffering from deteriorating physical and mental
health. Stella is equally admirable, a strong woman loyally standing
by the man she loves, whom she regards as a hero to the cause of
freedom of the press.

_Ithaka_ stresses that if Assange is extradited to America,
supporters fear he’d face extremely harsh conditions. He would also
become the first journalist ever convicted under the
draconian Espionage Act
[[link removed].],
a blow against journalism, transparency, and democracy. From London to
New York, Stella, John, and Gabriel lobby influential people, make
media appearances (which John detests, but does anyway), and speak at
many rallies, where they are joined by numerous others carrying signs
demanding “Free Julian Assange!”

Notable dissidents such as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, _Pentagon
Papers_ leaker Daniel Ellsberg, plus United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer, support the cause. As does NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden, seen in exile in Russia, declaring that
Assange could be “imprisoned for the rest of his life for the best
thing Julian ever did.” In a charming moment at the film’s end,
many rank-and-file protesters are thanked by name as the credits roll.

Gabriel’s role in the film demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses
of a production created by relatives or friends. On the one hand, this
proximity to a protagonist can provide behind-the-scenes access and
firsthand knowledge of background information. This is an asset,
especially when dealing with someone like Assange, who has had to
operate in the shadows while he worked to ensure the public’s right
to know by disclosing clandestine documents, state secrets, and the
like. And _Ithaka _often does have a fly-on-the-wall, you-are-there,
vibe that’s possible mainly because the producer, as well as Stella
and John, are so close to the imprisoned Assange, who is no longer
able to speak freely for himself.

On the other hand, relations and pals are hardly impartial,
independent observers and may also be so familiar with the subject
matter of their story that they take it for granted that audiences,
too, will be in the know about the details of what is, particularly in
this case, quite complicated. For example, many viewers may know about
Assange in connection to _WikiLeaks_’ embarrassing disclosure
during the 2016 U.S. presidential race of a trove of emails pertaining
to the Democratic Party’s then-candidate Hillary Clinton, which
prompted her GOP rival, Donald Trump, to exalt: “I
love _WikiLeaks_!”

Of all people, the only person seen in _Ithaka_ (briefly) discussing
the Clinton emails is raucous podcaster Joe Rogan. Rogan is highly
amused, as he frames it, that Assange was the darling of the Left when
he was exposing U.S. government war crimes, but that they demanded his
head after _WikiLeaks _released the private Clinton emails. 

But no matter what one thinks about _WikiLeaks_’ role in the
release of the confidential Clinton messages, whether the Kremlin was
implicated and the curious timing of it (just as Trump’s sexist,
crude _Access Hollywood _comments were being made public), Assange
is not cooling his heels at Belmarsh Prison and facing extradition to
America due to this eyebrow raising act. Nor is he currently in danger
of being extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual misconduct
(the investigation of which has been dropped
[[link removed]], another
episode not explained in much detail on screen).

Instead, Washington is trying to incarcerate Assange in America
because, as Amy Goodman explained
[[link removed]] on _Democracy
Now!_: “In 2019, Julian Assange was indicted in the United States on
seventeen counts of violating the Espionage Act related to the
publication of classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and elsewhere.” 

According to _Ithaka_, Assange faces a 175-year prison sentence if he
is convicted under the World War I-era Espionage Act
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which was enacted during the country’s first Red Scare
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aimed at silencing and persecuting the antiwar, pro-labor Left, from
Socialist Eugene V. Debs (who ran for president from a prison cell
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to anarchist Emma Goldman, one of hundreds
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immigrants who were deported
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Britain’s outspoken former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray,
gets to the heart of the matter in _Ithaka_ when he eloquently
points out: “Not one of those people who committed war crimes is on
trial anywhere. Instead, the one who [exposed] it is on trial. And
that’s not right.” 

The most damning, dramatic portion of the almost 750,000 classified or
sensitive military and diplomatic documents that U.S. soldier Chelsea
Manning was eventually convicted for providing to Assange, who exposed
them via _WikiLeaks_ in April 2010, was “a classified U.S.
military video depicting three airstrikes from a U.S. Apache
helicopter on July 12, 2007 in New Baghdad, Iraq. At least eighteen
people were killed in the airstrikes, including two journalists
working for Reuters,” according to
[[link removed]] _WikiLeaks_.
Children were wounded and none of the civilian casualties, including
Reuters’ Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, proved to actually be
militarily threatening U.S. forces.

Only a short portion of this harrowing video
[[link removed]] is screened in _Ithaka_,
and the name by which it came to be called, “Collateral Murder,”
is oddly never mentioned in the documentary. Be that as it may, while
some on the Left may question various disclosures _WikiLeaks _has
made, and Assange’s personal behavior, _Ithaka _makes a truly
compelling case and argument for not only preventing Assange’s
extradition to America, but for freeing someone suffering from unjust
persecution for years due to the heroic exposure of U.S. wrongdoing in
Iraq and beyond.

There have been other films made about the WikiLeaker, including
features such as 2012’s _Underground: The Julian Assange
Story _and Bill Condon’s 2013 biopic _The Fifth Estate _starring
Benedict Cumberbatch, and documentaries like Laura Poitras’s
2016 _Risk_ and 2017’s _Hacking Justice_. But the
106-minute _Ithaka _is arguably the most deeply personal production
made about a man who, the documentary reminds us, is also a father,
husband, son, and brother. Assange, who is now fifty-one and
reportedly in mental and physical distress, deserves to be reunited
with his family. The war criminals should be behind bars, not those
who reveal their crimes against humanity.

 
 
 
_ED RAMPELL_ [[link removed]]_  - 
L.A.-BASED FILM HISTORIAN/REVIEWER ED RAMPELL CO-AUTHORED THE THIRD
EDITION OF “THE HAWAII MOVIE AND TELEVISION BOOK.”_
 
  

 

* Film
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* Film Review
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* Ithaka
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* Julian Assange
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* Espionage Act
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