The Man Behind the "Six Billion Dollar Man" Documentary on Wikileaks' Julian Assange

Q&A with Director Eugene Jarecki

Last night, I walked by a man sitting alone on a bench drinking a beer.

It was prolific documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight, The King, The House I Live In). Earlier this year, Jarecki won a Golden Globe and Cannes Film Festival jury prize for his new film about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, The Six Billion Dollar Man. He’d already watched his film six billion times in the editing room, so here he was chilling outside its U.S. premiere at the Avalon Theater in Washington, DC. It took him fives years to complete. “It almost killed me,” he says.

The saga of Julian Assange—the first publisher to be prosecuted by the US for publishing true information—is one of the most epic (and epically misunderstood) stories of our lifetime. Being an aspiring documentary filmmaker who also followed the Assange case, I jumped at the chance to ask Jarecki a few questions.

I laughed when I learned one of his favorite films is as far from a serious investigative documentary as you can get—the wacky 2004 Chinese action comedy, Kung Fu Hustle. Speaking on expanding government surveillance and censorship, Jarecki said, “At least people in China know they’re fucked. People in America don’t know. We’re totally fucked.” After a little more conversation, he offered to get me in to the premiere. Probably cause he sensed I could keep talking for hours, and this was the most effective way to get rid of me.

After the film, I didn’t see any cameras capturing the Q&A, so I walked down to the front row and began recording, as Jarecki explained his unique decision to make a film without interviewing its main subject. He continued speaking on a number of issues including the challenges of filmmaking while being surveilled by the government; interviewing Siggi, the sociopath Wikileaks volunteer-turned FBI informant; and a real life Assange look-alike in the audience that was making him uncomfortable.

I asked Jarecki how big his documentary team was. He told me hundreds of people worked on it but it was primarily a core of sixteen individuals. I think it’s always helpful for aspiring creators like myself to remember how much work it takes to make a successful documentary, so we don’t get discouraged in the process. (Our struggles are not special!) I’ve been working solo for five years on my own documentary, Killing Kenosha, and with your help, I hope to finally publish a full cut next month (the five year anniversary of the Rittenhouse trial) right here for Orf.Report subscribers.

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