Kill the Messenger
Saturday May 31 | 9:00 pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
Directors: Mathieu Verboud & Jean R. Viallet, 2006, France, 84 minutes
http://www.doxafestival.ca/festival/kill_messenger

In the wake of September 11, 2001, Sibel Edmonds is approached by the FBI. As an American of Iranian and Turkish origin, Edmonds’ linguistic skill set makes her a valuable asset to the Language Services Unit, where she spends months translating high-security clearance documents. One day shortly after reporting the possible infiltration of her unit by Turkish spies to her supervisors and their supervisors, Edmonds’ world is turned upside-down.

Instead of seeing her colleague become the target of an investigation, she is interrogated, then unceremoniously fired and warned not to pursue her claims any further as she would be watched and listened to. In the years that follow, Edmonds is transformed into the country’s first public National Security whistle-blower and a prominent First Amendment advocate (the ACLU calls her the “most gagged woman in America”). Sibel is fighting for the very ideals that American democracy relies on and is facing, against overwhelming odds, some of the most reckless and powerful officials in the U.S. government. She brings her case to Congress, the 9/11 Commission, the media and the Supreme Court, facing down not only the FBI, but also then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, Vice-President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Advisor Condelezza Rice.

Sibel has granted the film crew full and exclusive access to document her story and her struggle as we zero in on her “secret” —the network of nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities. Playing like a big-screen adaptation of Frontline, Kill the Messenger is a riveting true spy story that presents one citizen’s unexpected journey through the politicized quagmire that is America’s War on Terror.

A life-and-death frame of mind
Movies about people in extreme situations will open and close the DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Kevin Griffin, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=6b519896-26fe-4551-9506-54cb15ac9fe8