Filmmaker Kym Staton believed in Julian Assange’s story and what’s more, he believed it deserved to be told on the big screen. Few others did.
“Every distributor I spoke to said, ‘It’s not worth doing theatrical. It won’t work. Cinemas don’t want it – you’re not going to make anything. It’ll take three to six months even for them to book it in. None of this was the case at all.”
The Trust Fall: Julian Assange was a passion-driven project from the start. Initially funded via a crowdfunding campaign, the documentary tells the story of Assange and his battle for freedom after being held in captivity for his role leaking US war documents. This week, Assange finally walked free after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit espionage in return for time already served.
The public’s ongoing support, mobilized through projects such as The Trust Fall: Julian Assange, played a key role in his release. Staton said he always wanted the film to be shown in cinemas, where it would have the most impact.
“I just think cinema is the most powerful way to watch film, because of your focus – you don’t pick up the phone, make a cup of tea, don’t pause it, watch it a week later, finish watching it later, or just turn it off. You just buy your ticket and you sit there. And there’s also that sense of community. It’s a communal experience sitting in a crowd of like-minded people that react.”
With film distributors largely uninterested, Staton and his team emailed more than 800 cinemas asking them to screen the documentary about “the most famous political prisoner of our times”. His initial yardstick for success was modest – just 20 cinemas – but he ended up getting about 150 over time.
“It wasn’t a synchronized release – it was gradual. And then when Event Cinemas ran it over three sessions on 35-plus sites, it got into the top 20 of that week, and then a whole lot of cinemas came on.”
They included cinemas in other major chains such as Village and Hoyts, as well as independents and regional cinemas.
The surge was also driven by a strong fan base. Staton would regularly appear in the media to talk about Assange, while he had also built a sizeable audience even as the doco was still being made.
“We shared a lot of material. We didn’t hide it all away as we were going through production… we shared little clips, we shared bits of animations. So we got people’s interest. When we released the film in Australia, we already had 40,000 Facebook followers, which is massive for a documentary.
“Then we said to them, ‘request it at your cinema’… I set up a page on our website with instructions and thousands of people did that. We had a hunch that might increase the number of bookings and then literally, within a few weeks after we started releasing it in Australia, we had cinemas contacting us to say, ‘a few people asked for this film’. It got it onto their radar.”
One supporter in the NSW regional town of Bowral single-handedly ensured it was screened at the local Empire Cinema.
“They said, ‘You’ll have to guarantee us you can bring 300 people’. So the supporter went off and got a little petition of people that would be willing to see it and goes back to the cinema with a list of 300 people. The cinema put it on and they ended up showing it over nine sessions.”
The film has now grossed about $336,000 in Australia after 22 weeks, according to Numero box office data. “We haven’t done it in a way that’s geared towards profit, we’ve done it in a way that’s geared towards maximum reach.”
It is a positive result for Staton and his hybrid distribution company Films for Change, but most importantly, Assange is now a free man. Staton says they will now make some small updates to the film before the digital release, with the film still to be shown in US cinemas from July 17, followed by Canada and Europe later in the year.
“The original cut of the film is still showing in some Australian, UK, and NZ cinemas and we are getting cinemas re-running it which is awesome. We are seeing new audience interest as a result of the massive media blow up.”