SECRETS OF AN ASYLUM SEEKER

It's easy to take freedom of speech for granted when you are nestled in the bosom of an open-minded Western society that cherishes a diversity of voices.

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THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN CERT 15, IN CINEMAS NOW

However, any privilege can be rescinded when it no longer suits the self-serving needs of decision-makers.

Celebrated documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki invests years probing one of the revered and feared bastions of online whistleblowing. Launched in 2006 by founder Julian Assange, WikiLeaks published confidential material and classified documents supplied by anonymous sources under the auspices of holding people in power to account.

Subtitled Julian Assange And The Price Of Truth, Jarecki's two-hour picture is granted unprecedented access to profile the publisher and activist and his struggle to avoid extradition to America on charges of leaking classified information.

The film's enigmatic subject has been a thorn in the side of successive American administrations but he was behind bars for most of the time Jarecki was assembling this and unavailable for the kind of piercing self-reflection that the best documentaries demand to expose a subject's moralistic core.

The Six Billion Dollar Man dances lightly around the rape allegation, which Assange strenuously denied and led to him seeking asylum for several years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition back to Sweden.