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# A More Personal View of the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-dissident-jamal-khashoggi-documentary/
- Published: 2020-12-17T15:25:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:51:27.000Z
- Description: This year's second documentary about the Saudi Arabian journalist, The Dissident focuses more on his life story.
- Author: Dan Schindel
- Tags: Film, Capsule Reviews, Documentary, Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:08 (2019, 2020, part 3)

*The Dissident* is the second of two documentaries to come out this year about journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018\. The first was [*Kingdom of Silence*](https://hyperallergic.com/kingdom-of-silence-jamal-khashoggi-documentary/), which used Khashoggi as a way to look at the recent history of Saudi Arabia and its relationship to the US. In contrast, *The Dissident* is more about Khashoggi himself, and goes into greater detail about both his life and his death.

The two films' different focuses are a function of their differing levels of access. With *The Dissident*, director Bryan Fogel and his crew have much more connections to friends, family, and colleagues of Khashoggi than *Kingdom of Silence*, which instead favored high-level political talking heads. Rather than a macro view of US-Saudi relations, this is a more intimate story of one man in conflict with his government. The difference in sensibilities is evident even in the titles; in *Kingdom of Silence,* one interviewees insist that Khashoggi *wasn't* a dissident because at heart he loved his country. *The Dissident* is smarter about how being critical of one's homeland works, and the potentially horrific consequences of speaking out.

[The Dissident](https://thedissident.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *opens in virtual cinemas December 25 and on VOD January 8.*