Underground: The Julian Assange Story (2012)

Underground is an Australian television film produced for Network Ten. It premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and aired on Network Ten on October 7 2012. The film draws its title from Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, a 1997 book by Suelette Dreyfus, researched by Julian Assange, but the film bares little relation to the book itself, which catalogues the exploits of a group of Australian, American, and British hackers during the 1980s and early 1990s, among them Assange himself. The film was not approved by Julian Assange, Wikileaks or any other member of the Assange family and there was no collaboration with the Assanges or Wikileaks during the making of the film. However Julian Assange subsequently had "a very favourable response to the movie".

Filmed in and around Melbourne, the film was written and directed by Robert Connolly and produced by Matchbox Pictures’ Helen Bowden, with Tony Ayres and Rick Maier serving as Executive Producers.



^ Watercutter, Angela. "Underground Brings Drama to Julian Assange's Teenage Hacker Days". Wired. Retrieved 5 October 2012.

^ "Julian Assange gives Underground movie the thumbs up". TV Tonight. 5 October 2012.

^ "Underground: The Julian Assange Story". IMDB. Retrieved 5 October 2012.

Synopsis

In 1989, known as ‘Mendax’, Assange and two friends formed a group called the ‘International Subversives’. Using early home computers and defining themselves as ‘white hat hackers’ - those who look but don’t steal – they broke into some of the world’s most powerful and secretive organisations. They were young, brilliant, and in the eyes of the US Government, a major threat to national security.

Actors