The Fifth Estate
You can't expose the world's secrets without exposing yourself
The Fifth Estate (2013)
Production
Budget
$28 000 000
Revenue
$9 058 564
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Actors
Benedict Cumberbatch
Julian Assange
Daniel Brühl
Daniel Domscheit-Berg
Anthony Mackie
Sam Coulson
David Thewlis
Nick Davies
Alicia Vikander
Anke Domscheit-Berg
Dan Stevens
Ian Katz
Stanley Tucci
James Boswell
Laura Linney
Sarah Shaw
Short description
The Fifth Estate follows the partnership between Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, and Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who becomes his close associate. Working together, the two turn an anonymous platform for leaking confidential material into an organization that exposes government secrets and corporate wrongdoing on a scale beyond that of established news outlets. Their success brings sudden public attention, but also the scrutiny of governments and intelligence agencies. When they gain access to a large archive of classified United States documents, disagreement grows between them over how the material should be handled, and their friendship and their working relationship come apart.
Bill Condon directed the film, working from a screenplay by Josh Singer. It was released in 2013, arriving between Condon's two Twilight Saga films and Mr. Holmes. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Assange and Daniel Brühl plays Domscheit-Berg, with Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander and Dan Stevens among the credited cast.
The production had a budget of 28 million USD and returned 9 million USD worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.2/10 from 44,000 votes, and on TMDB 6/10 from 1,128 votes. A critics' rating of 5.3/10 from 176 reviews places it below both audience scores, which are close to each other.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, Jeremy Renner was considered for the role of Assange, and James McAvoy for the role of Domshait-Berg.
- The film’s original title was “The Man Who Sold the World”.
- Julian Assange, after reading the initial script, reacted negatively to the idea of the film and called it “a complete lie” and “propaganda,” particularly due to hints at Iranian nuclear developments. Assange refused to meet with Benedict Cumberbatch, but then began corresponding with him by email, which helped Cumberbatch in his work on the role.
- The research conducted by screenwriter Josh Singer for the film was fraught with some risk. At one point, Singer’s computer was attacked by hackers. Shortly thereafter, FBI agents came to his home and began asking various questions, justifying their visit by stating that Singer’s name appeared in an investigation of Chinese hackers.
- Filming began in Iceland, on a small island of volcanic origin, on the very edge of the Arctic. This location was impossible to recreate anywhere else. Against the backdrop of the so-called Blue Lagoon (a picturesque landscape with a solidified river of cooled lava and active geysers), one of the scenes of a quarrel between Cumberbatch and Brühl's characters was filmed, despite the deafening howling wind and almost horizontal rain.
- In Berlin, filming took place at several memorable locations, including the Berlin Cathedral.
- An interesting and simultaneously challenging task for artist Mark Tildesley was recreating the famous Tachles Art House in Berlin, where Daniel Domshait-Berg spent some time. The building was constructed in 1909 in the Jewish quarter of East Berlin. Initially, it housed a department store, and during the war – an SS headquarters. In 1943, it held French prisoners of war. Notably, the store and prison transformed into a headquarters for artists, anarchists, and freethinkers from all over the world. The building was turned into a gallery, teeming with various forms of artistic expression both outside and inside. For a long time, the building served as a kind of symbol of freedom for Berlin’s creative community. For several years, the city authorities unsuccessfully tried to close Tachles. Unfortunately, in 2012, the attempts were successful. The building closed and soon turned into an ordinary residential building. After receiving official permission to film, Tildesley and his team began painstakingly recreating the building’s former grandeur from the inside. They even restored a nightclub that once functioned in Berlin. Specifically for this purpose, they found the former owners of the club and agreed with them, renting the original furniture and paintings that were hung on the walls, even returning the fire-breathing dragon above the bar.
- In July 2012, it was reported that Jeremy Renner showed great interest in the role of Julian Assange. However, in October of the same year, it was announced that the leading role went to Benedict Cumberbatch.
- Joel Kinnaman auditioned for the role of Daniel Domshait-Berg.
- At the heart of WikiLeaks lies what is known as Assange's secure posting platform, allowing anyone to upload information and documents anonymously. A special technology of deniable encryption allowed the source not to fear that their actions could be traced. The system, developed by Assange, Suelette Dreyfus, and Ralph Winman, was initially intended to be transferred to human rights activists working in countries with repressive regimes, but ultimately the system proved useful for the WikiLeaks base. Soon, the site switched to a more sophisticated encryption system developed by a programmer known as the Architect. Now, even WikiLeaks employees did not receive data on which informant leaked specific secret documentation to the portal. Even after arrest and under torture, WikiLeaks employees would not have been able to name their sources; they simply did not know them.
- Julian Assange launched the WikiLeaks project in 2006. For the first time, it became possible to tell the truth about the activities of the government and expose corporate crimes without fear of persecution and harassment from the state apparatus. The website published documentation testifying to a contract killing in Somalia; money laundering by the management of a Swiss bank; corruption in the upper echelons of power in Kenya. The operating procedures of the Guantanamo Bay high-security prison were published; evidence of a nuclear disaster in Iran; documents confirming the operation of a chemical waste dump on the Ivory Coast; evidence of violations of banking regulations in Iceland, and much more. The Guardian described WikiLeaks as an “elusive and uncriticizable leak machine.” However, in 2010, WikiLeaks exceeded all acceptable risk limits by publishing the so-called “mega-leak” – a massive volume of top-secret information jealously guarded by American diplomats and military personnel. This included 91,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan, 400,000 documents on the war in Iraq, and 251,287 documents related to diplomatic missions around the world. All of this became public knowledge. WikiLeaks was about to feel the full power of the US government. Almost immediately, Bradley Manning, a military technical specialist who provided documentation on the war in Iraq, was arrested. Since the publication on the WikiLeaks portal was protected by a sophisticated encryption system, Manning confessed to a familiar hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he was the one who leaked the information on Iraq. It was at Lamo’s behest that Manning was subsequently arrested. The WikiLeaks website became the cause of an incident, to combat which it was created. As the leak continued, the US government began to say that WikiLeaks posed a serious threat to national security, although at that time there was not even a question of whether WikiLeaks had violated any law of the United States of America.
- The character 'Ziggy' is based on a WikiLeaks volunteer – Sigurdur Thordarson, who turned out to be an FBI informant.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
