‘The Bibi Files’: The film Netanyahu tried to stop

This is the film Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want you to see. And he certainly tried.

The Israeli Prime Minister did everything in his power to block the documentary The Bibi Files from being screened. Thankfully, a Jerusalem court rejected Netanyahu’s suit, which claimed that the film violated Israeli law by making use of unapproved interrogation footage. The film ended up screening at the Toronto International Film Festival as a work-in-progress film and officially had its world premiere at Doc NYC last November.

Now, the documentary directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Oscar winner Alex Gibney has made it onto the shortlist for Best Documentary. In the race for the Academy Award it joins several other titles like the Norwegian-Palestinian production No Other Land, about settler violence and the expulsion of Palestinians from their West Bank villages, as well as anthology film From Ground Zero, about the situation in Gaza after 7 October.

The Bibi Files, however, has been banned from being viewed in Israel and until the new direct-to-consumer film platform Jolt picked it up, the film was in a distribution crisis, with no streaming platform daring to touch it.

And for good reason: it is the urgent and scathing journalistic exposé that, in an ideal world, should topple Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

The Bibi Files features never-before-seen video of Netanyahu being interrogated by police on corruption allegations that led to his indictment in 2019. Israeli police recorded thousands of hours of interrogation footage between 2016 and 2018, which was then leaked to Gibney in 2023 via the Signal messaging app.

Known for his insightful and often damning documentaries, the veteran filmmaker behind gems like Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Taxi to the Dark Side and Going Clear: Scientology & The Prison of Belief, sensed that this was something big. He enlisted the Emmy-nominated Alexis Bloom (Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg) to direct while he took on took on producing duties.

The resulting documentary is a hard-hitting chronicle that sheds light not only on Netanyahu’s character but shows how his unscrupulous nature has directly shaped the current state of the Middle East. Bloom does this by comprehensively – and chillingly – putting the puzzle pieces together and exposing how luxury objects like expensive cigars and champagne have impacted the lives of countless Gazan and Israeli families. Dismiss them as trivialities and foibles of the rich, but The Bibi Files establishes a direct line between them and current-day tragedies, and how a man’s corruption and entitlement can trigger a domino effect that leads to war crimes.

It’s not just one man and his sinister trademark grin, however. This shocking documentary utilizes the leaked police interrogation footage of Netanyahu’s wife Sara and his ultra right-wing son Yair, as well as archival footage and several interviews with important voices in Israel (journalists, politicians – including former Prime Minster Ehud Olmert), to paint the picture of a man so self-righteous that he would do anything to keep his strangle hold on power. No matter who he has to accuse. Or who has to die in the process.

The role of Sara Netanyahu is a particularly interesting part of The Bibi Files. Described as insatiable and volatile by many interviewees, she demands expensive gifts and she is central to her husband’s trial. Through Bloom’s portrayal, we see a foul-mouthed Lady Macbeth who wields extraordinary influence over her husband. Many of her outbursts in the interrogation room (“Your evidence is utter and complete bullshit. Bye!”) are just as damning as the contemptuous attitude her husband displays during his interrogations with the police, in which he insists that everything he does is for the good of Israel.

If these two ego-fuelled characters were fictional, The Bibi Files would be dismissed as cartoonish. However, to watch this documentary is to observe to what extent wickedness thrives when those who think they’re above the law go unchecked.

Aside from Sara and the Prime Minister’s son, Yair, who makes his dad look progressive, another key player is Israeli-born Hollywood billionaire Arnon Milchan – the former spy and Oscar-winning producer behind films like 12 Years A Slave, Heat and Fight Club. We hear of Milchan’s ties to Netanyahu’s requests for luxury items directly from Milchan. When he is further questioned by the police, he confesses to extravagant donations, capping things off with: “All of Bibi’s friends are rich. What can I say? If this comes out I’m dead.”

All these strands coherently come together to reveal a web of corruption that goes beyond the acquisition of expensive presents, forming The Bibi Files’ central argument.

To fully understand current events, one has to look at Netanyahu’s legal predicament and acknowledge that both ‘Bibi’ and Sara “know how to ‘steal’ things they can’t have”. This segues to the PM’s present tactic of making instability and war the main conditions for his political survival. This in turn leads to the realization that Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging the war in Gaza to avoid imprisonment on corruption charges.

“A forever war is beneficial for Netanyahu,” we’re told, and the evidence for this instrumentalization of conflict is strong.

ADVERTISEMENT

Which leads to 7 October, described as “another instrument to stay in power.”

Having established direct correlations between Netanyahu’s corruption trial and the radicalisation of his policies, Bloom perceptively ends the final act of The Bibi Files on the Hamas attacks.

The footage is deeply upsetting, as is the presented evidence that Netanyahu is responsible for the continued existence of Hamas. Many of the experts Bloom interviews persuasively argue that Netanyahu tactically arranged Hamas to receive money via Qatar to maintain instability, believing that he could control the flames. As Netanyahu says in one of the leaked interview tapes: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

The fact that he’s illustrating his powerplay by quoting The Godfather should tell you all you need to know about the man, whose ploy to sustain extremists and weaken moderates massively backfired.

ADVERTISEMENT

“He did not create Hamas, but he fed it,” says one interviewee.

This final part of The Bibi Files is the most harrowing, but also ends on a surprising note of hope.

In a moving testimony, Gili Schwartz, a young woman who survived the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, provides a clear justification for outrage against Netanyahu. She argues that as long as the war goes on, the PM can avoid being toppled or imprisoned. She also reveals that the families of the hostages are nervous to speak out against him in case “he might not help them” if they do.

However, Schwartz eloquently and compassionately calls for all the facts to come out, and expresses how reconciliation is possible. In this moment, she becomes the anti-Yair, the counterforce to the unapologetic and hateful premier’s son who all but assures the continuation of the Netanyahu legacy.

ADVERTISEMENT

It’s her words that resonate the loudest. Not his.

The odds are that The Bibi Files won’t oust the Netanyahus from power. However, what Bloom achieves in just under two hours is staggering.

Most impressive of all is how her documentary shines as a thorough and always factual presentation that avoids toppling into polemic. At no point does it become an apology for Hamas or condone any form of violence; it is quite simply art speaking truth to power that goes beyond infantile and frankly stupid arguments that equate any criticism of the leader of Israel to antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Netanyahu is a politician like any other, one that needs no outside help in signing his own despicable portrait when he ends an interview with the glib remark: “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

It’s in these small moments that the viewer knows who they’re faced with, regardless of political alliances or beliefs: a petulant man, devoid of empathy, who sees his supposed service to his country as a way of serving his own interests. In these regards, he is indistinguishable from any textbook snake-oil salesman.

ADVERTISEMENT

The fact that The Bibi Files managed to see the light of day in the first place is to be celebrated, especially when taking into account that nervous streamers in the US are not interested in political content. They shy away from it and all the criticism that may come their way. In this respect, kudos to Jolt and the European distributors like September Film (Belgium, Netherlands), Dulaf Distribution (France) and Dogwoof (UK) for acquiring it.

And kudos to the Academy voters if it makes the final five contenders. Should The Bibi Files head to the Oscars in March, there’s a strong case to be made for it winning the Best Documentary trophy. Whether it does or not is irrelevant though, as it remains essential viewing – one deserving of its very own award.

Quite what it would be called is another matter. Best what? Truth-To-Power film? Exposé of Human Greed and Moral Compromise? Cinematic Representation Implicating Morally Indefensible Netanyahu And Lackeys?

We’d give The Bibi Files all three imaginary gongs. Especially that last acrostic one.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Oscar nominations have been delayed to 19 January due to the California wildfires. The ceremony takes place on 3 March.