ASPEN FILM ANNOUNCES 41ST ANNUAL FILMFEST AUDIENCE AWARD
October 26, 2020
ASPEN, CO (October 23, 2020) Aspen Film is delighted to announce THE DISSIDENT as the Audience Award winner for its 41st annual Filmfest. The hybrid festival, which ran from October 15-21, included a total of 16 highly anticipated fall previews and award-winning features from the international festival circuit and consisted of both online and in-person screenings.
“When I saw THE DISSIDENT at Sundance in January, I felt that it was groundbreaking; it was a film that stayed with me and really made me think about larger global issues for months. When we had the opportunity to bring the film to Aspen – only the 2nd US festival the film had played – I was thrilled to be able to share a film of this magnitude and significance with our audience,” says Susan Wrubel, Aspen Film’s Executive + Artistic Director. “It speaks volumes that our community feels as passionately about Bryan Fogel’s insightful and investigative, historical documentary as we do. We are very proud that THE DISSIDENT was selected as the Audience Award winner of the 41st Aspen Film Festival.”
“As a Colorado native, receiving this honor is especially gratifying,” says filmmaker Bryan Fogel. It was so important to us to handle this real-life story with the emotion and urgency that Jamal and his fiancée Hatice deserve. Thank you to the Aspen Film Festival audiences for recognizing THE DISSIDENT. Your honor helps us immensely in enshrining Jamal’s memory and achieving our ultimate goal of getting justice for his murder.”
About the Film:
THE DISSIDENT, from Academy Award®-winning director Bryan Fogel (ICARUS), is an edge-of-your-seat, adrenaline-filled thriller that plays out at the highest levels of power, exposing the labyrinth of deceit behind the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi was a principled reformer who sought to create a more open society in his homeland, and who was ultimately murdered for his vocal opposition to the Saudi government. Featuring never before seen surveillance footage and unprecedented access to a wealth of other damning information previously unavailable to the public, Fogel earned the trust of those closest to the tragedy to weave together this story of courage, money, power, tyranny, love, and technology run amok. (USA, 2020) 117MIN
FESTIVALS: Sundance Film Festival 2020
DIRECTOR: Bryan Fogel
WRITTEN BY: Mark Monroe, Bryan Fogel
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Sponsors:
The 41st annual Filmfest is made possible by the generous support of Alpine Bank, Aspen Public Radio, The Aspen Times, and The Gant. Aspen Filmfest is also charitably underwritten by grants from AspenOUT, Colorado Creative Industries, Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media, Les Dames d’Aspen, and the Wheeler Opera House (City of Aspen) Arts Grant Program.