WikiLeaks Releases Fifth Estate Challenger: Mediastan

[milesf]

Give me something I can print off and a way to attach it to a movie poster without damaging the theatre owner's display case and I'll visit my local theatres and make sure the URL and QR code to "Mediastan" is visible to all patron who go to see "The Fifth Estate"

[selmnoo]

http://b.vimeocdn.com/us/vod_poster/781/7816_275.jpg -- but I cannot find a large sized one. Try asking @wikileaks (https://twitter.com/wikileaks)

[grumpycord]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/175613597/Wl-Media

[selmnoo]

Assange should do a Reddit AMA promoting this movie, seeing as Cumberbatch just got done promoting The Fifth Estate yesterday on Reddit. The Cumberbatch AMA was very disappointing, because all upvoted questions were just fawning compliments from Cumberbatch fans.

[elisee]

For what it's worth, he did address a question regarding his portrayal of Mr Assange with more than a few words: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1o8l5f/i_am_benedict_c...

[pests]

I don't want to imply anything with this comment but the number of accounts with the same or similar age as Cumberbatch participating in that thread is highly unusual.

[andor]

This is a movie about freedom of speech, self-censorship in media, and which people are really put at risk by publishing cables (hint: corruption and organized crime).

Short summary, including spoilers:

A group of Wikileaks-affiliated journalists tries to find media partners in the -stan countries that would publish Wikileaks cables locally. The meetings with those organizations are set up as interviews about free speech in their respective countries. As a surprise in those meetings, they are offered the cables about their own country. They film the initial reactions, try to sign a gentlemen's agreement about how the cables should be handled, and follow up if any stories were published. It's really interesting to see what happens. Some sign the agreement, but don't publish anything. One guy in Kazakhstan actually says that he doesn't want democracy. The editor of a newspaper in Turkmenistan that they speak to turns out to be a member of parliament. That newspaper has a picture of Turkmenistan's president on it's front page every day.

Then, Alan Rusbridger from The Guardian and Bill Keller from the NYT are interviewed. It's astonishing to see that media in the US and UK have similar fears than those in the -stan countries. For example, Assange criticized that The Guardian redacted the names of a mafia boss, who according to cables had close ties with Uzbekistan's president. They apparently did this because they fear libel lawsuits, in which the burden of proof would lie on the libeler.

[teamgb]

It's free this weekend for people in the UK, everyone else can rent it online for just one pound (about $1.50) from Journeyman Pictures.

If you prefer to do things differently, a magnet link is available here: http://pastebin.com/6RVSpTAa

[aclevernickname]

This is currently being shared on The Pirate Bay[1], for those of us not living in the UK, and too poor to pay for a viewing/DRM.

[1] http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/9039415/Mediastan

[andor]

You can also just buy the movie from anywhere in the world, DRM-free, from vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mediastan

[charlus]

I saw this last week with a really fascinating Q&A from Assange, thought he was very compelling. I'm not sure how the people of Sixteen Films will feel about this "challenging" The Fifth Estate though.

It was a worthwhile doc as well, worth the watch - much better than the Alex Gibney thing earlier this year, which felt very much phoned in.

[grey-area]

This is nothing like Fifth Estate, but it does look really interesting in its own right. Not a drama so much as the diary of a road trip through central asia with wikileaks workers along for the ride, interjecting with their own stories and negotiating with journalists about the cable releases.

I've skipped through a few interviews, and it's enlightening (for me at least) as an overview of the region's politics and the attitude of journalists to publishing these cables. I'll be going back to watch it all.

[EDIT] The section on Afghanistan starting at 0:45 or so is particularly interesting.

[interstitial]

You or someone you know probably suffers from a monoculture, statist-based education. Dig through some pre-20th century civil thought and you will come across: "Adversarial Systems" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_system

There you will find a natural remedy dating back thousands of years that holds that subservience and conformity are poor forms of governance.

[rwmj]

Why doesn't he just release this as a video file?

[cma]

Written by michealochurch?

[Surio]

A clever pun/reference to michaelochurch's use of VC-istan here. :)

[victorantos]

watch it free this weekend if you are from UK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gbenFTcisY

[neur0mancer]

Free for all, enjoy while it last:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK6DDC4CV0s

[Theodores]

Currently at 2426 views.

Only 910,883,012 more views to snatch the number two spot in the 'most watched on YouTube' charts from Justin Bieber. Should be a snip...

[askar_yu]

This was one of those rare cases where I was ready to pay for the video; but then I am confronted with "Sorry, this film is not available in your region." and the buy or rent buttons are disabled. But guess what, somebody has uploaded it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK6DDC4CV0s

[carlosdp]

Why is an organization hell-bent on free information trying to censor a movie because they don't like it? Isn't that entirely contradictory to their mission?

[koala_advert]

They say it isn't the truth. They aren't trying to censor it, they're trying to get the truth out. How is that censorship?

[jamesbritt]

In what way are they trying to censor The Fifth Estate?

[ParadisoShlee]

You say that like it's a bad thing?

[xanth]

Lol, they have it free only if you have a UK ip. Wrong audience to do that to.

[paul9290]

Assange is sure helping with this movie's publicity.