The Bibi Files - Documentary

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Already beset by a serious image problem at home and abroad, embattled Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu suffered a new blow to his international stature after a full-length documentary about him had its world premiere Monday night at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

“The Bibi Files,” a nearly two-hour film, includes never-before-seen leaked footage of Netanyahu sure to increase the ire of those seeking his political demise, and perhaps give pause to a few of his fervent supporters. If nothing else, it could reshape his image abroad and unveil sides of the longtime leader previously kept under wraps.

In a Q&A after the screening, one of its creators drilled down on his immediate motivations: “People are dying every day, and we wanted to make a statement with this film,” said Oscar-winning producer Alex Gibney.

From start to finish, the film is nothing if not scathing in its depiction of Netanyahu — as a politician and as a person — both by way of his own testimony and the words of others. Little surprise he made a last-minute attempt to block the screening of the film, which the Jerusalem District Court dismissed.

Ironically, the movie’s most contested, incriminating content – namely, excerpts from the police interrogations – is far removed in time from the litany of actions for which Netanyahu is now most vilified, including his prosecution of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, his handling of negotiations to free the hostages and dodging personal responsibility for Israel being caught off guard last October 7 when thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, slaughtering 1,200 people and kidnapping 251.

Outside of the film festival and in the cinema itself, dozens of protesters rallied against Netanyahu’s prosecution of the ongoing war, with signs reading, “Bibi save the hostages, not yourself,” and, “Bibi, let my people go.”

“For a lot of Americans, the war goes on and on and on. And a lot of people are wondering ‘Why does it continue?’” Gibney said in addressing the TIFF audience. “And I think one of the reasons for taking this film on is to explain a lot of the events that we now see through the corruption, the moral corruption, of this one individual.”

The central focus of “The Bibi Files” is Netanyahu’s protracted legal quagmire involving three corruption cases that have dogged him, in and out of the courts, for much of the past decade. In 2019, following years of police investigation of suspected criminal malfeasance, Netanyahu was charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, all of which he has vehemently denied.

Unlike other Israeli politicians previously indicted for corruption, Netanyahu has defiantly refused to resign, insisting he’s the victim of a political and media witch hunt. To this day, the wheels of justice continue to turn slowly as all three cases remain unresolved in the court system after delays due to legal wrangling by Netanyahu’s lawyers, pandemic restrictions and the Gaza War.

Footage that Israelis may never view
Directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Gibney, “The Bibi Files” veers back and forth between two main sources. The first, dating from 2016 to 2018 and derived from thousands of hours of footage, consists of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife Sara, their son Yair, various friends and associates, and benefactors such as Hollywood mogul Amnon Milchan, telecommunications tycoon Shaul Elovitch, and (the late) businessman Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam.

Amid grievous allegations against Netanyahu, the police made the recordings, seeking evidence to determine whether to indict him on corruption charges. Until now, the videos, which were leaked to Gibney last year, hadn’t been seen publicly, including in Israel due to its privacy laws, which may preclude “The Bibi Files” ever being shown there.

The second main source material comprises recent interviews with prominent Israeli figures, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon and former Netanyahu adviser Nir Hefetz, and others much less known to the public but who once were connected to Netanyahu, such as his one-time close friend Uzi Beller and the former caretaker of his official residence, Meni Naftali.

Today, all are ill-disposed to Netanyahu, to put it mildly, describing him as a compulsive liar and immoral manipulator. Their words, especially for foreign audiences less familiar with Netanyahu, provide compelling insight into a controversial leader. Together, the interviews make for a searing portrait of the man who has led Israel longer than any previous prime minister and remains revered by many of his compatriots.

Veteran investigative reporter Raviv Drucker, who’s listed in the film’s credits as one of its producers, appears more frequently than the other interviewees. His informative commentary helps drive the narrative of the film, spotlighting chronologically key moments in Netanyahu’s rise to power and describing his modus operandi in his lifestyle and political ways as corrupt.

In the police tapes, it’s a toss-up who emerges the worst between Netanyahu, his wife Sara and their son Yair. For his part, Netanyahu strains credibility when, despite having a good memory according to one of his former aides, he frequently insists, “I can’t remember” or “I don’t know” when interrogators ask him about alleged impropriety, such as his well-known propensity for expensive champagne and cigars gifted by Milchan and his coercion of media owners for favorable coverage. Both Sara and Yair are each often hysterical in their denunciations of the police and highly abusive in answering or deflecting questions from investigators.

True to previous reports over the years of Sara’s volatile, controlling behavior, several interviewees speak of her as given to bouts of angry screaming and heavy-handed intervention in her husband’s role as prime minister. One former associate says Netanyahu is afraid of her. Another talks about her drinking problem, with a predilection for champagne.

Asserted several times in the final third of the film is how Netanyahu’s extreme fear of being convicted and going to jail drives his actions in doing whatever it takes to remain in power, such as forming a coalition with right-wing extremists, appointing and often acquiescing to National Religious head Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir as cabinet ministers, launching his attempted judicial overhaul and his prolonging of the war in Gaza, regardless of its devastating impact on the country and massive loss of life among Palestinians and Israelis.

Motivations behind this ‘work in progress’
Bloom and Gibney, both of whom attended the screening before a sold-out audience at the TIFF Lightbox, were still working on editing “The Bibi Files” up until a few days ago. It was a late addition to this year’s TIFF’s Docs program of new nonfiction cinema, which described the film as an “urgent journalistic exposé.” It was listed as “a work in progress” which was evident in the use of an actor as a temporary stand-in for an interviewee, whose real name is not used and who the filmmakers are hoping to be able to show and identify in the next version of the film if certain legal obstacles can be overcome.

Bloom and Gibney previously worked together on two other documentaries: “Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes” (2018), about the controversial media mogul, and “We Steal Secrets” (2013) about WikiLeaks. Bloom, whose father is Jewish, has visited Israel many times. Gibney received an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award for his many films, including “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2007.

They refused interview requests from the media but took part in a Q&A session after the screening.

“The film is almost there,” Bloom told the audience, referring to it as not quite finished. “It’s going to get better. I think we’ll carry on cutting it and refining it and perhaps even the ending may change because I don’t know whether we want to end the film with the call to arms for America to say something louder [about Netanyahu].”

She said it was Netanyahu’s much-contested plans for Israel’s judiciary, which the film addresses, that convinced her to get involved in making “The Bibi Files” last year, before the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7.

“Initially, the stakes were the judicial changes,” she explained. “I had spent time in Israel and had worked there before. So I was invested and you could see this pattern of democratic backsliding going on worldwide. You see parallels with what’s going on in Israel, in Hungary, in Russia, with this sort of strong-man syndrome. That’s what interested me.”

Gibney also shared his perspective about Netanyahu and the significance of the film.

“In films I’ve done in the past, I’m something of a student of corruption, both on a technical level and on a human level,” he said. “But I’ve never seen the depth of moral corruption as I’ve seen in this man [Netanyahu] and the way Alexis has been able to present it in the film. That is really a staggering thing to say.”

Ahead of the screening, the film was the object of great anticipation and brisk ticket sales, especially after Gibney and Bloom told the Hollywood trade paper Variety a few days before TIFF that the police recordings in their film are “political bombs,” while making no secret of their animus toward Netanyahu. Gibney added that the recordings “shed light on Netanyahu’s character in a way that is unprecedented and extraordinary. They are powerful evidence of his venal and corrupt character and how that led us to where we are at right now.