'The Bibi Files.' Benjamin Netanyahu fails to block documentary from screening

TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli court this week rejected a request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to block a documentary about his legal troubles from screening at a Canadian film festival.

The film, The Bibi Files, a reference to the prime minister’s nickname, contains video clips documenting Netanyahu, his wife Sara, and his son Yair, during police interrogations between 2016 and 2018 that sought to examine whether Netanyahu was involved in the corruption offenses attributed to him.

The prime minister is on trial for allegedly granting favors to media moguls in exchange for gifts and favorable media coverage. He denies wrongdoing and has called the trial, which began in 2020, a witch hunt.

The film casts a spotlight on the Israeli prime minister as he faces intense domestic and international pressure over his responsibility for the security failures leading to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

Ahead of the film screening in Canada on Monday, the Israeli leader filed a lawsuit against the State of Israel and a leading Israeli investigative journalist, Raviv Drucker. Netanyahu argued that the film, produced by Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, violates Israeli law by screening unpublished footage from his police interrogations.

In the suit against Israeli journalist Drucker, who is also one of the producers of the film, Netanyahu's attorney claimed that Drucker “publicly identified himself as a political opponent of the Prime Minister and expressed a desire for the end of his tenure."

The Israeli leader further argued that Drucker was well aware of the law prohibiting the publication of audio or visual recordings from interrogation rooms without prior approval. Despite this, he claimed that Drucker “facilitated the release of such footage."

But a judge in Jerusalem District Court on Monday rejected Netanyahu’s request, saying that since Netanyahu’s motion was filed on the same day as the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, there was not enough time for a proper hearing.

The almost two-hour long documentary begins in 2015, when Netanyahu won re-election for the fourth time. It specifically focuses on the politician’s long-running legal troubles and Israeli police investigations into his conduct.

The film is still in its final edits, but the rough cut screening early this week attracted about 200 people at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, according to attendees.

Toward the end of the screening on Monday, Gibney announced to the audience that Netanyahu had filed a motion to stop the showing of the film, but that the court had denied his request.

Gibney said: “There were two reasons to come here to Toronto. One is because people are dying every day, and we wanted to make a statement with this film. The other was that we wanted to show it here, in the market, and have people that can take it up, so we can show it to the rest of the world. That’s the idea. The interest is to get it out as quickly as possible so it can be seen everywhere.”

Director wants to tell a story of “democratic backsliding”

Alexis Bloom, the director of the film, said that although the film was still “a work in progress,” the team felt a “great urgency” to bring it to a wider audience, so that people can be better informed about one of Israel’s most consequential political leaders.

“We are all very passionate about this subject. We feel it needs to get out there,” she said, adding that she and Gibney began working on this film before October 7, when Netanyahu’s right-wing government was enacting a contentious judicial overhaul that weakened the oversight powers of Israel’s supreme court which it sees as too liberal.

“You can see that worldwide, the democratic backsliding. You see parallels with what’s going on here, in Hungary, in Russia. This is strongman syndrome. That’s what interested me,” Bloom told the audience.

Despite the fanfare at the Canadian film festival, The Bibi Files will not be shown in Israel, due to a law in Israel that says if one is videotaped in an official proceeding – they have right to privacy and the footage can’t be shown.

But Gibney said he suspected the film will find a way into Israel, although not through official distribution channels.

This is not the first time the Oscar-winning producer has shined a spotlight on Netanyahu. In 2016, Gibney directed the film Zero Days, which focused on the Stuxnet malware, developed by Israel and the U.S. to hurt the development of Iran's nuclear weapons, but got out of control, according to the film, due to Netanyahu’s insistence on activating it prematurely and without the approval of the U.S..

In an interview with Variety published last week, Gibney said he hoped his film could shed light on Netanyahu’s character in a way that is “unprecedented and extraordinary.”

“They are powerful evidence of his venal and corrupt character and how that led us to where we are at right now.”