 I would love to make this interactive conversation. There's a lot to talk about for this film. We'd like to hear from you. But I think maybe we could start off, if you could just tell us a little bit about what's developed since the film has been concluded and just to catch us up to today. Yeah, so, I mean, Julian's situation, essentially the same, he's in the much maximum security prison, fighting his extradition to the US. There was a High Court, the High Court ruled in favour of the US and pretty to tell the Home Secretary signed off on his extradition and said that he could be extradited and that was in June 17. And now he has lodged a final appeal, his final chance in the High Court or in the UK courts. And we're waiting on a decision from the High Court whether they'll accept that appeal application or not. But this legal proceeding, like Stella says in the film, and Nils Meltzer as well, it's this sort of never ending legal proceeding. And the whole time Julian is in this, what Nils Meltzer calls this suffering psychological torture essentially. And his situation hasn't changed since Nils Meltzer and the experts that he took to the prison found that he was suffering effects of psychological torture. So I was talking to an environmental lawyer, Stephen Donziger yesterday, and he phrased it in a very interesting way. He said the judicial system is sort of being used as a laundromat to clean up this persecution and give and wash it, so it's sort of acceptable to the public. And that's the way I sort of see the legal proceeding now. It's to keep Julian there, to keep him in this torturous situation. Questions? If you have questions, please raise your hands. Sorry. I'm sorry, could you repeat? When do we expect the appeal to be accepted? Well, it's just that it's up to the High Court judges now. So they've got the US DOJ did a reply and I was doing on the 31st. And now it's up to the judges on when they want to hand down their decision of whether they, you know, what appeal points they'll hear or whether they will reject me if they're entirely. So expect that to happen before the end of the year. Yeah. Yes, sir. And since Julian has throughout this period that he's been incarcerated, he really has not been able to do his work. And as the opening quote in the film makes clear by example, when you torture people, you affect others. And so you're a verdict. Probably other journalists are not doing their job. And so doing that same period, what is the important work that the journalists of the world have not been doing about the things that are most important and most kept where the deepest secrets are that need to be exposed. What kind of different world would we perhaps be having if our journalists and Julian have been able to do their work in all these years that he's been incarcerated? Yeah, I wouldn't mind picking up on that. It's a fantastic point. I know I'm traveling around with the film and obviously we started making in 2020. So it's been a two year process. But that's so true. Journalists around the world, particularly national security journalists, look at Julian's experience. And I think there's been a real pullback on the clarity of reporting. There's a real concern around their own prosecution. You know, that's in Western countries, but the fact that the US are doing it, China, Russia, other countries look at that. And they think, well, that gives me a tough lunch to do that as well. So it doesn't matter where you are a journalist. The fact that Julian's held there and the longer he's held there, he's held there as an example. Anyone who wants to report, particularly on national security, they're thinking twice, how they do it is a different matter. You look at, we've just seen the end of the Afghan War. It's 20 years. What Julian published, what he released published, what a whole bunch of their partner organization published. We were able to see on what happened in that, the Guantanamo Bay files, prisoners, and also the Iraq War reports as well. You know, maybe we will continue to see what else is happening around the world if Julian's persecution, persecution. Would you apply everything that's happened with COVID, which is absolutely extraordinary, the way we've shut down the world and transferred wealth to the wealthiest and implemented all sorts of strange procedures and everything with huge secrecy, including apparently the virus having been created by the military and released. Yeah, I'm sorry, I just want to say one thing on that. Everyone's recognising information. All the political parties are doing, all the corporations are doing it, and we're all the ones that are suffering. And I think organisations like WikiLeaks and their charter, what their manifesto set out to do was really bringing truthful information that was backed up in a kind of scientific manner and publish original documents. So I think the need for journalists, you know, publishing that sort of truthful information is such a dire need today. And what governments around the world are able to do on either side of politics and what corporations are able to do now is really murking the waters and it's really hard to see a bit of clarity in all of it. So I think that, you know, with what WikiLeaks, you know, they're dearly needed, any other organisation like that is really dearly needed at the moment. Thank you, thank you for the question. I kind of have a question. I just want to make one statement because there was one part of the movie that was, it just struck me in a way and it's when your father said that what he wanted to do was to give love and it seemed that it was something that was very difficult for him to figure out. And it dawned on me that that's what Julian is trying to do for all of us is give us such a significant love. I never looked at it that way. I thought it was truth and I don't know if that's what you were going for but that's how it struck me. I mean, we both, Julian, Kase and John, you know, they're heroine doggers. They have a particular way of looking at the world. Yes. And trying to understand it and I think the interaction with other humans is, you know, particularly challenging, you know, particularly bigger realities and spectrum. And that's what John was trying to explain. But, you know, I think there's the element to that. Their relationship to the world is, you know, another perspective, another particular perspective as well. I also want to say something else and I do want to ask you a question because I think the situation is so incredibly desperate and I feel a lot and I mean, perhaps we all do. But really, do you think there's any alternative then for people to start to be willing to be arrested for this cause? And do you have any other ideas that actually individuals could do to try at this time to save Julian? Yeah, well, you know, as we've traveled, you know, all over the world over the last three years and as we go from place to place, we see this worldwide movement, you know, building. And we can see, you know, there's now parliaments. Every European parliament now has Julian Assange in a group of parliamentarians who are calling for Julian's freedom because of what it means to their people and they're reporting on these sorts of issues. Even we have world leaders now. So, you know, the Australian Prime Minister said enough's enough and he doesn't see what purposes served of Julian being in prison. You've got the Mexican Prime Minister who's made a statement. You've got the Vice President of Argentina who's calling for Julian's freedom. You've got the new President of Colombia, Petro calling for Julian's freedom. Boric and Chile calling for Julian's freedom. So, there are world leaders all around the world who are calling for his freedom and there's this sort of wave, this growing wave of people because these leaders and these politicians, they just represent us, like we elect them, but they represent millions and millions of people. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in Berlin on the steps of the Reichstag. We had 41 parliamentarians there, all holding up sides for Julian Assange. That's millions of Germans. They represent millions of Germans. So, I think there is part of this wave. It is growing and there is things people can do here. There's, we're taking some activists here outside. You can sign up to the mailing list and there's actions happening all the time around the country. There's protests outside embassies, protests outside the DOJ. There was a huge protests outside the DOJ on the 8th of October, which is great speakers from across the spectrum. It's military journalists, human rights activists. So, it really is a growing movement and I suggest you take some of the flyers, take some newspapers, sign up to the list to find out what's going on and get involved. Thank you. You need to sit right behind you, go ahead. So, what's the point of finding a tradition? I mean, it's not gonna go anywhere, right? It's just, I don't know, that's the end of it. Well, you can say it's not much for everyone, right? I think we're speaking. Yeah, I guess what we've seen and what the expert witnesses testimony has found and why the extradition was originally rejected at the magistrate's level was the expert testimony said that Julian would likely die if he was extradited here. You know, we saw there were elements within the national security apparatus that actually want Julian dead. So, that's the sort of situation that Julian faces if he's extradited. Right, but if he is not, this is our system up. Well, if he is not, he is in a prison, in a maximum security prison, but we still have a fighting chance. So, we're still fighting to stop the extradition. I think hope is very important in this situation. Yeah, go ahead. Are American news organizations doing enough in your view to help some? And what do you say to the sort of still lingering accusations that he is a puppet of the Russian regime of Putin? Do you have some questions? I would say there's powerful editorial boards that manage parties who publish the information which children is now being prosecuted. You know, they've shown their support. I think in showing solidarity with all journalists who are in prison around the world, you know, publications can always do more. I think probably the diminishing power of the media and other powers taking advantage of that becomes more difficult for them. But, you know, this is a fight where they can probably center their focus and show solidarity with Julian because once this falls, I mean, this whole country is built on the idea of the First Amendment. You know, the whole reason we can have these festivals and the reason we can have these discussions is because freedom of speech is held up above everything else here. And this battle says that what Julian's been charged with is receiving, possessing and publishing classified information. Now, publications do that all the time in the US. But that is a crime. That is a crime. And so they can choose to use that whenever they like. They haven't been able to yet. But if they do, there's a precedent set. And so I think, you know, focusing the idea that this needs to be protected is really important in this country and around the world because it sends a message as well. And so I think organisations, other media organisations can do more, you know, always do more. But it's a critical time that's recognised as well. Yeah, just on, I mean, this Russian puppet stuff is just complete bullshit, to be honest. And it's a distraction. It's a total distraction. You know, to distract people from the actual principles, the actual principles that are at stake in this case. Like Niels Nelson said in the film, you know, Julian turned the spotlight on the Bush administration, the crimes of the Iraq war and the legal war that was, you know, the WMD, the lie that everybody was told. Julian exposed all of that, exposed, you know, the war in Afghanistan and how that was being run. And they decided to, instead of, you know, turn the spotlight on him. And that is part of that. Those sort of bullshit smears and things like that, that's part of that work to, you know, dehumanise Julian and turn him into something else and make us forget, you know, what's really at stake here. You know, it's our right to know, our right to know what our government's doing now. I just say one more thing on that point because I want to thank Joe Gloria because he reminded me of an article that was leaked from the Pentagon as a cyber security assessment on how to handle Wikileaks. 2008 was published. It's a 32-page document. And basically it was tactics to try and assess how they were going to respond to the rise of Wikileaks and the information that was being published and able to get out to the public. And one of the solutions was legal prosecution, obviously, which Obama decided not to, because otherwise then all the other publications, all the other media outlets would have had to follow suit and they would have had to be prosecuted as well. But the other idea in there was an unrelenting campaign of reputational destruction upon Wikileaks, upon Julian and upon anyone who associated with him. So think about that. If you had that written about you, by the Pentagon, we need to undertake an unrelenting campaign against your reputation. So what does that say about their tactics? This is 2008, this was written. The budget of the Pentagon, they could ship 300 people aside to work on that for the next 20 years, all the rest of Julian's life. And we would never know. It's those sort of publications how we understand how power works. And I think it's really important to understand that when we think about those accusations as well. Okay, we just have time for one more question. So I'm gonna go with you right there, yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah, well, it's back in, so it was in 2019 when Julian had just been taken into Belmarsh maximum security. He was, I went to see him with John and journalist John Pilger. And he was, I'd never seen him like that before. Throughout all the years he'd been in Ecuador and ever seen under house arrest. I'd never seen him in a state like that. He was then kept in the health wing of the prison, which the prison is actually called the Hellwing. And kept in his solitary confinement essentially. And I left the prison that day thinking that I might not see Julian again. And that's when I'm a filmmaker, I'm a film producer. I usually produce scripted drama films. So that's when we started to think about making a film, making a film about the Julian that we know about this gentle genius, this family man who loves his children and loves his family. And how do we do that? And at the time, because Julian's in prison, so how did we get to know Julian? And so at the time, John was traveling around Europe, advocating for Julian. So it seemed obvious to start following John when we did that for about six months or so. And then Stella, who had been Julian's secret family, her name was about to be revealed in some court documents. And she decided to take control of that. And that's the first interview we see in the film with that BBC journalist. And so we started following her as well and tracking her and following that journey. And so, yeah, it evolved over time, you know, it's real life, it's not a script. So, yeah, we started following Stella and John. And that sort of became a dual sort of protagonist story. I want to shout out to Neil Slotifork here, who is our amazing assistant director for all those brilliant moments, all those very personal moments that you saw in the film. But yeah, we shot and we shot. And it wasn't till Ben, Ben Lawrence, one day we called Ben and we started chatting about the film and we're on the same page, you know, from the very beginning. And it's really when, you know, Ben came on board as the director and did all those amazing interviews that you see with John, the sort of threat of the threat of the film and really took control of the story and made it what it is without it. So, Karen Johnson. And Gabriel, thank you so much for sharing the film with us. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say if you can, I don't get an opportunity to thank people, but Neil's acted like a co-director really. I don't have a chance to thank him like that, but he's a Danish journalist and filmmaker and we really made it all together. It was a wonderful thing. To all the supporters here, I know there's some people in the audience who help financially within the film or want to thank Randy Kredicoe, who is in the National Trojan, who shoot all of them. And, you know, anyone who's kind of focused along the way. So, I think Alexandra and Nicholshev is here, who she filmed some of the New York sequence as well. And anyone else, I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight. I must say that there's a QR code thing on your way out. There's an audience award for this festival. So, please vote. I think you can give us five stars, but that would be the best. And yeah, and please put your email around. If you do one thing today, just put your email down. It's on our way out and you can get updates of what's going on around the place. Thanks. Thank you guys so much.