The Fifth Estate

Synopsis: The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world's most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society-and what are the costs of exposing them?
Director(s): Bill Condon
Production: Walt Disney Pictures
  2 wins & 3 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.2
Metacritic:
49
Rotten Tomatoes:
37%
R
Year:
2013
128 min
$3,254,172
Website
540 Views


1

Let me

assert my firm belief...

that the only thing

we have to fear...

is fear itself.

That's one

small step for man...

This is Walter Cronkite

in our newsroom.

President Kennedy

died at 1 p.m.,

some 38 minutes ago.

...who are trying to make

a boogey out of us...

Go at throttle up.

This vehicle has exploded.

They are here in the thousands.

They are here

in the tens of thousands.

Diana,

Princess of Wales, has died.

This just in.

Television viewers

across the country

watch in astonishment...

- Oh, my goodness.

- Oh, God.

There was

a huge explosion sound.

Der Spiegel

is begging for more time.

The Times wants to go.

Let me talk to Rosenbach.

Christ,

it's like herding cats.

No, I don't want

to have to scroll down

for the Task Force 373 story.

Holger, I've got Nick.

Ah, great. Five minutes?

- We have to go.

- Five more minutes.

Yes, Bill, I know. But Nick

just spoke to Rosenbach.

They need at least

another few minutes.

No more delays, Alan.

You said twelve o' clock.

I know, but the point

is to publish together.

You know the Germans.

They need to dot all the "I's"

and cross all the "T's."

Go. Now.

It's live.

The Times is live.

Well, there you go.

Patience, humility,

all American virtues.

Yes, Bill, thanks very much

for not giving a sh*t.

Go.

Of course, our top

story this morning...

the White House

blasting the release

of over 90,000

U.S. military records.

It came from an organization

that didn't exist

five years ago, WikiLeaks.

The New York Times,

Britain's Guardian,

and Germany's Der Spiegel...

coordinated in publishing...

what some are comparing

to the Pentagon Papers,

back in the Nixon years.

They include

civilian casualties

and special forces

killing squads.

The most serious allegation

is that some soldiers

committed war crimes.

I know

much has been written...

as a result of the

substantial leak

of documents from Afghanistan.

What is this website,

"WikiLeaks"?

And who is Julian Assange?

Assange has made WikiLeaks

a global force.

And for better or worse...

exposed what he considers

some of the world's

darkest secrets.

The eyes of the world

are on the Frontline Club

in London.

Julian Assange is a man

without a home who lives

the life of the hunted...

changing his appearance,

using false names...

and encrypted cell phones

to avoid detection.

The U.S. government argues

there's nothing noble

about Assange.

A U.S. official describes him

as very Anti-American.

Come on!

It's Daniel.

Sh*t.

Uh, good morning.

I assume most of you

have read, uh,

this morning's papers. Um...

This is...

The Guardian. Um...

Fourteen... Fourteen pages

about this topic.

Also, concurrently,

Der Spiegel...

The New York Times...

These are revelations which

pierce the veil of secrecy

surrounding this war...

painting a more complete

portrait of events

we thought we understood...

but we may not

have known at all.

Mr. Berg.

Have you seen this?

They're pouring out of

every printer in the office.

I guess someone's pissed

you made New Year's Eve

a work day.

Well, as our resident

computer genius...

could you please find out

who that someone is?

Whoever it was disguised

his IP address.

According to this, the print

jobs are coming from...

your computer.

It's thousands of pages.

You'll have to manually reboot

it if you want it to stop.

Where are you going? I need

you to finish the Opel job.

I costed out GM, too.

In case you need something

to do on New Year's Eve.

Charlie in maintenance said

you left this by the scanner.

Happy New Year.

Daniel Berg. I volunteered

to sell shirts tomorrow.

We must be

on the schedule somewhere.

My associate Jay Lim sent in

our proposals months ago.

I'll be back in a minute.

We didn't get anything

from Wikileakers.

"WikiLeaks."

Wiki-whatever.

This is ridiculous.

Who's in charge here?

- Julian?

- Huh?

It's Daniel. Daniel Berg.

I contacted you over chat.

Daniel. Thank God.

I've got people waiting, here.

Can you help me

with this prick?

His organization is super cool.

They've been doing

crazy sh*t in Kenya.

The least you could do

is put us on your program.

The small conference rooms

are all booked.

What about the auditorium?

It's empty until the talk

about hacking video games.

Okay, you can have

that for half an hour.

- Thank you.

- But nobody's gonna show up

unless you print some flyers.

Well, that shouldn't

be a problem.

Daniel...

God forbid

we give out free toner

to human rights activists.

Sorry.

I totally spaced out

on that proposal.

Mind you,

I was a bit busy in Nairobi.

Oh, by the way,

that report we leaked...

shifted voting 10%

in the presidential election.

You might want to mention that

when you introduce me.

Sure.

Shredded my power cord

in Mombasa.

I assume the club won't mind

making a small donation.

I'll pay for the cord if

you actually get it to work.

Well, when you're taking on

global corruption...

you need a few super powers.

Et voila!

I'm a mathematician

by training.

When I was a grad student

in Melbourne...

I became interested in...

Okay,

send us the camera now!

- ...how...

- Excuse me, a little bit more!

I became

interested in information...

Okay, switching!

...and how it flows

through society.

- And how...

when new information

comes to light,

it can bring about

great change.

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Daniel Domscheit-Berg

Daniel Domscheit-Berg (né Berg; born 1978), previously known under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, is a German technology activist. He is best known as the author of Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website (2011).After leaving WikiLeaks, he announced plans in January 2011 to open a new website for anonymous online leaks called OpenLeaks. At a Chaos Computer Club (CCC) event in August 2011, he announced its preliminary launch and invited hackers to test the security of the OpenLeaks system, as a result of which the CCC criticized him for exploiting the good name of the club to promote his OpenLeaks project and expelled him from their club, despite his lack of membership. This decision was revoked in February 2012. In September 2011, several news organizations cited Domscheit-Berg's split from Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as one of a series of events and errors that led to the release that month of all 251,287 United States diplomatic cables in the Cablegate affair. In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine in its FP Top 100 Global Thinkers, with Sami Ben Gharbia and Alexey Navalny. more…

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