Directors still dealing with legal issues as ‘damning’ ‘Bibi Files’ premiers

At a Q and A session following a screening of The Bibi Files in Toronto, featuring new footage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s graft grillings, directors Alex Gibney and Alexis Bloom both note outstanding legal issues with the film that is keeping it unfinished and unable to be seen in Israel.

Gibney tells the audience that some of the material in the film had previously been leaked and “discussed” in the Israeli press, but what’s new is the footage. Due to laws aimed at protecting privacy rights, he says, showing the film is illegal in Israel.

“It does threaten the freedom of the source, if the source were ever to be found out,” he says of the person who leaked him the footage.

Bloom says an actor was used to portray one person in the film because of legal issues with putting footage of the person on screen.

“There’s a lot of legal issues involved in making a film like this, and there are legal issues that we can’t specify here involving the person who had to be portrayed by an actor,” she says, adding that she is still hoping to remove the actor and use the actual person.

The Bibi Files: Well that’s the last place I wanted to see Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Not sure if there’s any new bombshells in the leaked interrogation footage — and the movie is mostly that footage. Picks up in urgency once it gets to Netanyahu’s actions after the charges. #TIFF24

— Reuben Baron @ #TIFF24 (@AndalusianDoge) September 10, 2024

According to accounts on social media, during the session, Bloom was heckled by a member of the crowd who was unhappy with the film’s subject and other comments critical of the war in Hamas.

Jason Gorber, a Canadian film critic, says the movie links the corruption probe into Netanyahu to the Hamas massacre of October 7 (which he initially misstates as September 6, perhaps in homage to Netanyahu.)

“Very well constructed, balanced, and clear eyed, with real pain and anger given space to be heard,” he tweets.

THE BIBI FILES – Compelling doc with plenty of Israeli forces from world of politics, media and Netanyahu's inner circle, as well as leaked testamony seen for first time, amifies the coruption case, ties it directly to both quid pro quo and the coddling of Hamas that led to Oct…

— Jason Gorber (@filmfest_ca) September 10, 2024

Another local critic, Radheyon Simonpillai, calls the movie “Damning. Infuriating. Necessary. But also so incredibly made.”