The documentary film "The Six Billion Dollar Man" directed by Eugene Jarecki, dedicated to the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been withdrawn from the screening list of the American Sundance festival, foreign specialized media reported.
The film will not premiere at Sundance in January due to what it says are "recent and unexpected events" that prevent the film from being completed on time, according to the director's official explanation.
The director, who previously won awards at the Sundance festival, said that his production was withdrawn so that he could finish it in time, before the world premiere.
"It's true that recently there have been significant and unexpected developments in the story that, if not included in the Sundance version, would not have made the finished film," Jarecki said, without elaborating on what they were.
The film was supposed to be shown as a special screening, not in competition for awards.
According to the film's plot description, the documentary follows Assange as he faces a potential 175-year prison sentence in the US for leaking classified government documents.
Assange was imprisoned in the UK from 2019 to 2024, constantly fighting extradition to the US.
The US government has charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act. He is currently in Australia, where his family is lobbying US President Joseph Biden for an American pardon.
The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will run from January 23rd to February 2nd.
The Sundance Festival has become one of the most important American independent film festivals because it provides an opportunity for promising documentary, foreign and independent filmmakers to promote their projects and attract the attention of the general public.
Several of today's world-famous directors, including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daren Aronovski, had their big breakthrough on the film scene right at Sundance.
The founder of Sundance is the legendary actor Robert Redford, who named this film event after the film classic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" from 1969, in which he played one of the two main roles, together with another legend - Paul Newman.
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