On October 2, 2018, Saudi Arabian dissident journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain some paperwork for his upcoming wedding to his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never came out alive. Turkish authorities soon revealed that they had audio and video evidence showing that Khashoggi had been murdered and dismembered inside the consulate by a 15-member Saudi hit squad. U.S. intelligence concluded that the assassination had been orchestrated from the very top of the Saudi establishment, on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, better known as MBS, the kingdom’s heir apparent and de facto ruler.
Khashoggi’s murder inspired shock and outrage around the world, and even prompted some governments and multinational companies to at least temporarily reconsider their ties with Saudi Arabia. Film director Bryan Fogel, whose Oscar-winning 2017 documentary Icarus exposed Russia’s massive state-sponsored Olympic doping program, recognized Khashoggi’s story as one that demanded to be told and that would make a compelling film.
In The Dissident, Fogel narrates Khashoggi’s life, career, and activism through exclusive interviews with the journalist’s fiancee, friends, and associates, and lays out the evidence of his murder through security footage, audio transcripts, and testimony from Turkish investigators. Central to the story is Omar Abdulaziz, a young Saudi activist living in Montreal, who knew and worked with Khashoggi and has become the target of the Saudi crown prince’s digital surveillance, misinformation and intimidation apparatus. The film shines a disturbing light on the unfathomable dangers and obstacles that face any Saudi citizen who dares to criticize the regime, at home or abroad.
President Donald Trump took no action against the Saudis over the murder of a U.S. resident, preferring to prioritize lucrative arms deals. The Biden administration recently announced a series of sanctions against Saudi officials, withdrawal of support for the Kingdom’s war in Yemen, and a pause on weapons delivery, but stopped short of any measures against MBS himself. GQ talked to Fogel about the film, its international impact, and the recent developments in this still-unfolding story.
GQ: Let’s start with the news. At the end of February, the Biden administration declassified the intelligence report, which the Trump administration had suppressed, that found Mohammed Bin Salman personally responsible for ordering Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. The government issued sanctions against several people, and the State Department announced a new visa restriction policy they’re calling the “Khashoggi ban,” but they stopped short of sanctioning the crown prince himself. A lot of people have been pretty upset about that. What was your reaction when you heard that the US wasn’t going to punish MBS directly?
Bryan Fogel: Well, it was disappointing just in a sense of knowing Hatice so well, knowing Omar, knowing this story. Having spent over two years of my life making this film, becoming very personally invested with those that were impacted and directly impacted. On the other hand, I believe that my role is as a filmmaker, as a storyteller. I’m not a politician, I’m not a policymaker. And so, all that I can do is basically tell a story, craft something as best as I can, and then see what I can do to hopefully effect change. But I don’t think, for me, that I go about something from the outset, going, “Oh well, if this doesn’t happen, then I’ve failed.”
I say that because clearly, it was disappointing that Biden didn’t do anything. It was disappointing that he made such a big deal about it, released the report, summarized what everybody already knew, and then [decided to] go after the other people, the other killers or part of that team, and not actually pursue any sanctions or punishment against MBS. Clearly that sends, in my opinion, the wrong message. I mean, it’s letting a dictator and authoritarian essentially know—just as we have in the case of Putin as well—that okay, well, while this behavior is frowned upon, it’s not like anything ever really comes of it.
The administration said they decided not to sanction MBS specifically because he’s effectively the head of state of a US security partner, and because they couldn’t figure out a way to freeze his assets, since they couldn’t disentangle his own wealth from Saudi state funds. And then, another line of argument about this is to say that what Biden is doing with regard to Saudi Arabia has actually been more consequential than the sanctions might have been: ending support for the war in Yemen, halting arms sales and reassessing the relationship. I wonder what you think of this argument, that the most direct, moral, straightforward response just wasn’t available to the administration?
I disagree with that. There’s global Magnitsky sanctions, there’s Interpol arrest warrants, there’s no-fly, there’s basically banning him from entering the United States. I mean, these are all things that you could do. Whether or not it would be effective, I think is secondary at least to the face of it, which is that obviously, there’s not a real desire to do anything, and the desire is coming from essentially … a show of power and resetting of relations, rather than meaningful action.
Look, it’s certainly better than it was under Trump. Clearly there was some negotiation that happened for the release of Loujain Hathloul, and that’s something positive. I don’t think it’s that surprising, but it’s hard to really know, because I’m not a politician, what could have been done or not have been done, other than to know that they didn’t do much.
Have you been in touch with any of the people you spoke to in the film, recently? How are they feeling about the success of the film, and how are they dealing with this news on a personal level?
I have kept in very good contact with Omar and Hatice. I know that they’re very pleased with the film. They’re very proud of the film. Is Omar disappointed and Hatice disappointed that Biden didn’t do more? Sure. I mean, is Hatice disappointed that there still hasn’t been justice for Jamal, at least in a proactive sense? Yes. But are they also proud to have been a part of this? Did they feel that the film has been impactful?
Omar’s told me that it’s really had an impact, and that they’ve put it up on all the BitTorrent sites or whatever. There are platforms in the Arab world for the people who really need to see this film. And that he’s had thousands if not tens of thousands of responses. That’s really good. I consider Omar and Hatice like my brother and sister at this point, and it’s a pretty extraordinary journey we went on, to make this film.
What made you decide to make this film? And where do you begin in telling a story that big and complicated?
I was following this story over those couple of weeks as it unfolded in October, and my ears perked up. The story, as ghastly as it is, checked all the boxes of what I was looking for in my next story in regards to human rights, freedom of speech, truth to power. There’s so many elements of this story that resonated with me. As the Khashoggi murder unfolds, I go, “Well, this is really an upsetting, crazy story.” But also, I saw in my mind that it was a thriller.
The key to that was, would Omar and Hatice participate? Would they work with me exclusively? Because I viewed their participation as pivotal. And would the Turkish government work with me and trust me and provide me with their evidence and information, so that I wasn’t making an archival news film? That began the next three months of reconnaissance work and trust building and travel, before I made the actual decision of okay, I’m actually going to embark on the film and set about trying to make it.
Speaking of the Turkish government, obviously you got a lot of cooperation from them. Now, Turkey is not exactly a free country. It doesn’t exactly have a free press. This is a country that also imprisons a lot of journalists, silences critics, arrests people for things they post on social media. Was that relationship awkward or fraught at any point because of that?
It really wasn’t. Obviously, I’m aware of the issues regarding Turkey. In this case, in this particular case, Turkey is and was on the right side of history. And so whatever their political intentions may or may not be, I don’t actually believe it was politically motivated. I believe it was, “Are you kidding me? You came and killed somebody in our land, in your consulate, and then tried to blame it on us? We’re not going to have that.” And I believe this was just a complete affront to [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan].
But I said, “Look, in this case, the way to go tell this is to separate yourself.” You can only pick so many battles, and this wasn’t the film or the story to go after Turkey. This was the story regarding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and that’s the story that I want to tell. I reassured the Turks many times in this process, that if they trusted me, that I was not going to go out and slander them. … I kept my word to them, which was the understanding that we had. The obtaining of the transcript [of the audio recording of Khashoggi’s murder inside the Saudi consulate] … came literally over a year into working with each other. That was a huge gift for me, as well as all the police footage and those interviews. All that came from the trust building that came between me and the Turks, and in my keeping my promise that I wasn’t out there to go after their politics in this case.
We see from the film that the Saudi government goes pretty hard for its critics. Have you received any threats, or have people associated with the film received any threats or any harassment from the Saudi authorities, because of the film?
They went after our ratings on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. There’s been a lot of Twitter messages. I’ve seen a lot of that and Omar’s seen a lot of that. I have not been personally threatened. Omar spoke about ongoing threats. But in my instance, I’ve been okay, and I hope that I remain okay, but I have not been personally threatened.
One of the shocking things you describe in the film are “the Flies”: the people that the Saudi government pays to discredit people on Twitter and spread this information. And the use of spyware and the extent to which they are able to hack people’s phones, even Jeff Bezos’s phone. It speaks to the double-edged sword of how smartphones and social media were lifelines for dissent in the Middle East, and then the regimes have learned to turn these technologies against people. The situation feels bleak in that regard, and I wonder, do you think there’s any way that freedom and truth can win out in an environment where there’s just so many weapons turned against activists and journalists?
I don’t think so. I mean, there’s always, always going to be some other way to hack somebody’s phone. I don’t really see that there is a solution. I think, in this day and age, we accept that the idea of our own privacy is gone, and that the government can hack us whether it’s for good purposes or bad purposes. I think it’s a largely accepted fact, at this point.
What change or action would you say you hope for your film to inspire?
Again, I’m not a politician, so it’s really hard to say, “Oh, what change should come? What change shouldn’t come?” In a perfect world, Mohammed Bin Salman would be arrested on an Interpol warrant. He’d be extradited to Turkey or the United States, or The Hague and stand trial. All of Saudi’s political prisoners would be freed. Twitter would completely revise their platform to see to it that things like the flies couldn’t happen again. Saudi Arabia would open up to free speech, free journalism, freedom of press, and there’d be some parliamentary democracy in place. None of this is going to happen.
Global businesses around the world should stop doing business with the kingdom. Netflix and Amazon should sever ties with them. Streamers should step up to the plate and start protecting films that help human rights and speak truth to power. Goldman Sachs and KPMG and all the investment banks should sever ties with the Kingdom until they change their human rights abuses. We can just go on and on. It’s 100% gobbledygook. It means nothing. Because the reality is none of that is going to happen so long as there’s billions and trillions of dollars on the line.
I don’t see the United States going to war with Saudi Arabia over human rights abuses. Nor do I see members of the G20 severing relationships. Nor do I see investment banks around the world or venture capital funds, and big businesses and streamers, Fortune 500 companies severing ties. It’s all a bunch of wishful thinking. I think the most we can hope for is that there’s some meaningful action, sanctions taken, that helps to pressure Saudi Arabia and MBS to change their policies regarding human rights and to open up the kingdom more for freedom of opinion.
You mentioned Netflix and Amazon. You had trouble finding a distributor for The Dissident after the big streaming services didn’t want to touch it, possibly because they were too worried about hurting their business interests in Saudi Arabia. That feels like a microcosm of how the US government and other countries have dealt with the Saudis: We want their money, so we can’t say anything bad about them, otherwise they won’t give us the money.
Exactly. That’s just what it is. I really try not to get myself too worked up about that, because if you do, then it’s not productive thinking. It’s not solution oriented, and then all of a sudden, you do that, you go, “Okay, well, then I shouldn’t do something like that.”
Make films that are going to reach, that are going to come up against obstacles. I actually think the obstacles are good. I think they inspire me to work harder.