Underground: The Julian Assange Story

Underground: The Julian Assange Story

Cast: Rachel Griffiths, Anthony LaPaglia, Alex Williams
Director: Robert Connolly
Genre: Biography, Drama
Running Time: 89 minutes

Synopsis: Matchbox Pictures' Underground: The Julian Assange Story will have a national theatrical run from 17th of March to launch Robert Connolly and Footprint Films' new CinemaPlus initiative.

Underground enjoyed a successful debut on Network Ten in October 2012, which was watched by over 1.3 million viewers around the country. It was also invited to screen at the Toronto and London International Film Festivals where it received rave reviews. Now the official Festival version of the feature will hit cinemas screens in Australia.

Julian Assange is one of the most significant figures of the twenty first century. But before he was famous, before WikiLeaks, before the internet even existed, he was a teenage computer hacker in Melbourne. This is his story.

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.

At the urging of the FBI, the Australian Federal Police set up a special taskforce to catch them.

But at a time when most Australian police had never seen a computer, let alone used one, they had to figure out just where to begin.

Police ingenuity and old-fashioned detective work are pitted against nimble, highly skilled young men in this new crime frontier. What follows, is a tense and gripping game of cat and mouse through the electronic underground of Melbourne.

For a strictly limited season, Footprint Films is pleased to present the theatrical edition of Underground: The Julian Assange Story at Cinema Nova, Palace Brighton Bay and Palace Como in Melbourne; Palace Chauvel in Sydney; Palace Electric in Canberra; Palace Centro in Brisbane; Palace Nova in Adelaide; and Cinema Paradiso in Perth.

The release platform -CinemaPlus' is a new initiative from Footprint Films. A number of films will be released under this umbrella in the coming months, including The Turning, a bold cinematic event based on Tim Winton's best-selling collection of short stories featuring performances and directorial debuts by a number of leading Australian performers and artists across a diverse range of art forms.

"CinemaPlus is simply a new way at looking at the theatrical release of films", said Robert Connolly, writer/director of Underground and Director of Footprint Films. We want to be able to provide a different experience for cinema goers, to support the film with talks, Q&As and take-home content. To not only give people a film to watch, but a context."

Each CinemaPlus event screening will feature a value-added live event, including director and cast Q&A sessions, live musical performances, and political action forums. All attendees at CinemaPlus event screenings of Underground will receive a package containing a DVD-ROM with special features, including behind the scenes featurettes, screenplays, extracts from Suelette Dreyfus's eBook of 'Underground", music from the soundtrack and production photographs.