Ian Gabriel on Why ‘Death of a Whistleblower’ Is a Salute to Journalists in an Era of Manufactured Reality (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Thinus Ferreira Guest Contributor The nights were dark and stormy for many of the days on the five-week call sheet of “Death of a Whistleblower” but although South African director Ian Gabriel personally detests night shoots, he pushed through since his latest conspiracy thriller about cover-ups and a journalist’s dogged pursuit of the truth simply wouldn’t have felt the same shot in sunshine. “There’s always been a struggle for the truth in South Africa — in the past, and now,” says Gabriel, who also came up with the story.

His taut topical political thriller, produced by Tshepiso Chikapa Phiri for Known Associates Entertainment, will have its premiere on Feb.

28 at the Joburg Film Festival with a same-day release on Amazon’s Prime Video. Starring Noxolo Dlamini, Irshaad Ally, Standiwe Kgorore, Deon Coetzee and Kathleen Stephens, the film is a homage to whistleblowers, and follows an investigative journalist who, with the insider help of a whistleblower, tries to expose the state capture of a corrupt South African security group that’s fuelling warfare in Africa and beyond. “We’ve solved some of our struggles but there are some we haven’t and we’ve just graduated from the one to another.

The film takes place between two fictional crimes: the one that we see right at the beginning happens in 1995, and the other, the bombing of a town in Yemen where they use chemical weapons.” The notorious Wagner Group, Russia’s state-funded private army operating in parts of Africa, also pops up on a TV screen in the background in the film — something that’s deliberate, Gabriel explains. “South Africa and Africa are a testing ground for a lot of truths and a lot of problems in the world.