‘The Bibi Files’: Film featuring footage from Netanyahu probes to debut in Toronto
Directors Alex Gibney, Alexis Bloom collaborate on documentary based on clips from interviews with premier, wife Sara, son Yair, and friends, associates, staff in 2016-2018
An American documentary on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “The Bibi Files” will debut at a film festival in Toronto next week, with never-before-seen footage of the Israeli premier being questioned by police between 2016 and 2018.
According to Variety magazine, the recordings of the corruption investigation were leaked to renowned director Alex Gibney last year and feature interviews with Netanyahu, his wife Sara and his son Yair, along with friends, associates and household staff.
He was ultimately charged with fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases filed in 2019, and with bribery in one of them. The proceedings are ongoing and likely to take years to wrap up, especially given delays after the first trial was suspended along with all other non-urgent cases due to Hamas’s shock October 7 incursion and the ensuing war in Gaza.
“These recordings shed light on Netanyahu’s character in a way that is unprecedented and extraordinary,” Gibney was quoted as saying by Variety. “They are powerful evidence of his venal and corrupt character and how that led us to where we are at right now.”
The report added that the recordings, consisting of thousands of hours of interviews, have not been screened locally or abroad, due to Israel’s privacy laws.
Gibney collaborated with director Alexis Bloom on the documentary, titled “The Bibi Files,” who said that Netanyahu’s “character comes through very strongly in the recordings.”
Alex Gibney Doc Featuring Never-Before-Seen Police Interrogation Footage of Benjamin Netanyahu to Screen at TIFF (EXCLUSIVE) https://t.co/GVqbb1j0vY
— Variety (@Variety) September 2, 2024
Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing in the cases against him and claims that the charges were fabricated in a witch hunt led by the police and state prosecution, and facilitated by a weak attorney general.
“I would say the difference between this film and a news item or something that you might see on PBS about the Israel-Palestine conflict is that this is a very human look at the people in the news headlines,” Bloom was quoted as saying.
According to Variety, Bloom’s father is Jewish, and she has visited Israel multiple times. While both she and Gibney say the film is apolitical, they sought to find common ground in their presentation of the premier’s story.
“Netanyahu overstaying his welcome is something that many Israelis would agree on and many Palestinians would agree on too,” she was quoted as saying.
While the duo started work on the documentary before the war in Gaza erupted, Gibney said that now they believe it’s even more important to get the story out given the backseat Netanyahu’s trial has taken amid the conflict with Hamas and other Iran-backed terror groups in the region.
“There is a certain urgency in terms of reckoning with this material and reckoning with Netanyahu’s character at a time when we are being told, ‘Oh, these discussions are for another day because Netanyahu’s in the middle of a war,’” he was quoted as saying. “We felt it was important, and frankly, our duty as world citizens to make our story known as soon as possible because people are dying every day.”
The film is scheduled to screen on September 10 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre as part of the film festival.
Gibney and Bloom previously collaborated on “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes,” a 2018 American documentary that follows the rise and fall of the late Fox News mogul Roger Ailes.
