The Correspondent
(2024, Kriv Stenders)
Australian director Kriv Stenders is well-known for directing the Australian crowd-pleasing film Red Dog (2011). But he has also directed some challenging and hard-edged films, and he’s fully up to the task of tackling this story “based on true events” as the opening credits describe it. In fact, the intelligent screenplay by Peter Duncan is based on the memoir by Peter Greste, who was also closely involved in the film’s production. As a result of this combination of talent, the whole film feels authentic and true to what happened – but of course it contains more detail than most of us who were following the story as it happened could have known.
The story unfolds in two time-frames. One follows Greste’s (Richard Roxburgh) assignment as Al Jazeera correspondent to Cairo to fill in for a colleague for a few weeks over Christmas, 2013 in the aftermath of the overthrow of Egypt’s Islamist Government (affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood group). He issues a fairly-innocuous report or two, but is suddenly arrested by new Government authorities, who have the idea that he is a member of a terrorist organisation – Al Jazeera itself. What happens to him next is horrific and true. He and his colleagues, the Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, and the local journo Bayer Mohamed (Julian Maroun and Rahel Roman, both excellent), are transported to the notorious Tora Prison, but they do not even know what they are charged with. Greste is separated from them, so he is alone. A scene in which an Australian diplomat eventually offers so-called assistance is quite chilling. At least she tells him what he is charged with. Most of the charges are ridiculous, but a couple of the minor ones (Greste did not have valid accreditation or a licence to use his own equipment) might be in some measure justified, but should not involve a jail sentence. Luckily, Greste’s family is working in the background, and AL Jazeera has secured him a lawyer. But things do not go smoothly.
In parallel to this nightmare is a story told in flashback involving Greste’s experiences in Mogadishu in 2005. He, his producer (Yale Stone) and his driver (Josh McConville, I believe), all working for the BBC, were involved in a dangerous situation and disaster occurs. These flashbacks seem to have 3 purposes: to reinforce the danger that many journalists are in when they do their jobs, to give background to Greste’s internal struggles, and to relieve us from the relentless grimness of Greste’s imprisonment. It does all of those things well.
As a lawyer, I found the way events played out in the Egyptian “justice” system to be absolutely horrific. When you have no access to your lawyers, and then they are so intimidated that they fail to appear in court, or withdraw, it would be tempting to lose all hope. It is the task of Richard Roxburgh to portray all the emotions Greste went through during his 400 days in captivity, and he does a wonderful job, honouring Greste’s suffering appropriately. It is ultimately Roxburgh’s film. And it may well be a career-defining performance.
As we know, the story ends happily, with Greste’s release. But the details are just so well worth revisiting – even in distressing detail. Especially so in these troubling times, when populist regimes in the West seem to have lost sight of “antiquated” concepts such as “due process,” “rule of law” and “separation of powers.” The tagline for the film is “Truth is not the only casualty.” How chilling it is that, more than a decade after the events of The Correspondent, that is truer than ever.