28/12/2013 – Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney & Adelaide
MEDIASTAN is a vivid, captivating and disconcerting portrayal of the constraints – external and self-imposed – that journalists face, all over the world: from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to Fifth Avenue, New York City.
MEDIASTAN audiences are treated to a behind-the-scenes insight into the world’s first truly global media event: “Operation Cablerun”: the 2011 operation during which WikiLeaks ran hundreds of thousands of secret US government cables to media outlets around the world.
In MEDIASTAN, an undercover team of journalists drives across the central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and into US-occupied Afghanistan, before continuing its journey into the west; regrouping in Julian Assange’s kitchen, ambushing the editor of the Guardian, and obtaining candid footage of the New York Times editor making some shocking admissions.
Julian Assange, explaining why he produced the film, stated, “Central Asia is the most fascinating geopolitical region in the world. It is the cream in the geopolitical layer cake. On the top, Russia, on the bottom, China; in the middle, a fight for US influence” But, Mr. Assange explained, “what started out as a geopolitical road movie transformed into a tale of comparative censorship as our adventure continued into the unexpected heart of MEDIASTAN.”
The trail of censorship and media collusion with power eventually leads back to London and New York: to the offices of the New York Times and The Guardian.
Especially striking – and shocking – is footage of a smug New York Times editor Bill Keller boasting about the Times’ daily telephone conversations with the US government, and his knowing decision to conceal the NSA’s mass surveillance program.
In London, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger makes some awkward admissions: that his newspaper censored US cables about rich kletpocrats and western oil companies; and that the US State Department had ‘made approaches’ to the Guardian regarding its Cablegate publishing strategy.
Directed by Johannes Wahlstrom and co produced by Wahlstrom, Julian Assange, Lauren Dark, and Rebecca O’Brien MEDIASTAN asks a distressing question: What do the crisp-shirted, expensively-tanned media big guns of Manhattan have in common with the beaten-down, dissident hacks of Dushanbe, Tajikistan? Who is braver? Who is freer? And who is closer to the truth?
Screening Dates and Locations (Further locations will be announced in coming weeks)
January 9 7PM at Beav’s Bar, Geelong
January 10 7PM at Cinema Nova, Melbourne
January 15 6:20PM at Chauvel Cinema, Sydney
January 25 7PM at Mercury Cinema, Adelaide
Tickets are available via mediastan.com.au
Film trailer
Behind the screnes (Russia Today)
Watch the film online
Promotional Material
Online here, with all active hyperlinks …
Matt Watt, Secretary, WikiLeaks Party
