The Dissident

The Dissident (2020) is Bryan Fogel's documentary, available to watch online on iFILM. It follows Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 to collect paperwork for his wedding and never walked back out.

Fogel reconstructs that day from Turkish surveillance recordings, prosecutors' findings and the testimony of people who knew him. Running alongside is the story of Omar Abdulaziz, a young Saudi dissident in Montreal whose phone — and his private chats with Khashoggi — the film argues was breached through spyware. Khashoggi's fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, waits at the consulate door while the cover-up takes shape. What follows is weeks of evasions and pressure to let the whole thing fade.

The director of the Oscar-winning Icarus delivers a hard look at the price of speaking freely and how far a state will go to buy silence. The case leans on UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard's findings and pulls no punches. This one is for viewers who watch documentaries for evidence, not comfort. Stream The Dissident (2020) online on iFILM.