There’s a new documentary feature about the life and death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that, according to the Hollywood Reporter, “unflinchingly argues that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, aka MbS, ordered his assassination at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018.”

Which… I mean, we all know, but yeah. You can see that making a movie about it would make A LOT OF PEOPLE very, very nervous.

The Dissident’s director Bryan Fogel spoke with Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn at a Q&A following a special screening at the United Talent Agency this week, and told of his troubles finding a distribution deal.

“I’ve come to the realization that the major global distributors are scared of this film,” he told the crowd of high-powered industry bigwigs, “and that winning an Academy Award for Netflix [best documentary feature for 2017’s Icarus] was not enough to make them step up to the plate.”

Sean Penn then joked that Netflix wouldn’t take the movie because they were “too busy” paying off settlements for one of its talent partner’s sexual misconduct [an apparent reference to former House of Cards star Kevin Spacey].

To which Baldwin then reminded the audience:

“One of the most important cylinders of [America’s] engine of democracy is this industry, is the industry we work in. People count on you and they count on them [Fogel and Penn] to make films like this to tell them the truth about what’s going on, because they’re not going to hear it anywhere else in the world we live in today.”

The Dissident premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and got amazing rave reviews (THR called it “a first-rate documentary about a scandalous political tragedy”) but it ultimately wasn’t able to snag a distribution deal.

Anyone? Anyone?

(Photo: Avalon)