When producer Gabriel Shipton went to visit his brother, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, at the UK’s Belmarsh prison in August 2019, he walked away not knowing if it would be the final time they would see each other.
Having been arrested four months prior, following Ecuador’s rescinding of political asylum, Assange was on suicide watch in the health wing of the maximum-security prison, nicknamed the ‘Hell Wing’ for housing prisoners of extreme ill-health.
His sibling’s deteriorating condition led Shipton to begin work on Ithaka, a documentary focusing on his family’s side of a decade-long battle played out across the world’s media.
“I left that day thinking I might not see Julian again, so that launched that idea of how I can use my skills as a producer to get this side of the story out, because people usually understand Julian through the headlines, or the mainstream or corporate media narrative about him,” he told IF.
“I wanted to tell a side of that story that we as a family experience as a result of what’s happening to Julian.”
Filmed for two years across the UK, Europe, and the US, Ithaka follows Gabriel’s 76-year-old retired builder father, John Shipton, in his tireless campaign to save Julian, who has become an international symbol of press freedom.
With the publisher facing a 175-year sentence if extradited to the US, his family members are forced to confront the prospect of their loved one being lost forever to the US justice system.
Shipton joins forces with Julian’s now-wife Stella Moris as he embarks on a journey around Europe to rally a network of supporters, advocate politicians and reluctantly face the media. Other participants include Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist, Ai Weiwei, and Australian journalist John Pilger.
Written and directed by Ben Lawrence, the documentary was produced by Shipton alongside Adrian Devant, with contributions also coming from editor Karen Johnson, DOP Niels Ladefoged, and Brian Eno, who composed an original score.
While the project began production in early 2020, it wasn’t until August of that year that Shipton contacted Lawrence to come onboard amid a COVID pause in Julian’s court proceedings.
Less than a month after meeting John for the first time in Sydney, the director was sharing a flat in London with the elder Shipton, where he would go on to conduct more than 13 hours worth of interviews with his subject.
Lawrence said the fact they were living “cheek by jowl” added to the intensity of the production.
“I really wanted to tell a story as much as I could through John’s eyes, so if he met someone, then that gave us license to either have them in the film in some form through another interview they had done via the press,” he said.
“But it was really through John’s interactions and through him colliding and intersecting with people that allowed us to go off a little bit into their story
“However, it always came back to how it affected Julian, or how to progress the idea of the hearing.
“Those were the parameters I put on making the film; the idea was ultimately to lean into the emotion of it.”
Throughout the film, Lawrence’s probing, along with that of international media, at times provokes an exasperated reaction from John, who lets his aversion to the spotlight be known.
According to Lawrence, this was part of what made him such a fascinating subject.
“There were clear barriers he set up about what he wanted to talk about, but there also were intentions about where he wanted the story to go and what he did want to discuss.
“A lot of the time, I would hear about what he wanted to talk about during the day in his press stops.
“I had filmed that already so I didn’t want him to come back and share that with us.
“I wanted to get to know him and get to know about his and Julian’s relationship, and hear the side we don’t hear, because that’s ultimately what I was there for.
“That became a really interesting balance. When you add the stress of the hearing on top of that for the family, there were a lot of times when we were driving to the hearing where there was just silence.”
Ithaka premiered at last year’s Sydney Film Festival in November, a month after Assange suffered a small stroke in Belmarsh.
Since then, there has been a further development in his case, with the UK supreme court refusing to hear his appeal against extradition to US to face espionage charges last month.
Just over a week after the announcement, he married Moris in a ceremony attended by his father and brother.
Speaking at the beginning of March, Shipton said Ithaka had a distinct place in the dialogue surrounding his brother.
“There are so many films about this subject, so I hope this can fit within this body of media and film that’s around Julian,” he said.
“I am sure there will be films and TV in the future because it’s one of those subjects that people are very interested in.”
Ithaka will be released nationally on April 21.