Ecuador Grants Political Asylum to Julian Assange
Ecuador grants political asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
A film about Julian Assange’s teenage years will be hitting the big screen soon.
The flick, which tells the life of a younger Assange as a teenage computer hacker back in the 80s, will debut in Canada at the Toronto Film Festival, Deadline.com is reporting.
The festival runs from September 6 through September 16, 2012.
The trade publication says that NBC Universal International is also backing the project and will also be airing the film in Austrailia on Network Ten.
Actor Alex Williams, 21, will be playing the young Assange while Rachel Griffiths will be taking on the role of his mother and Laura Wheelwright will be playing his girlfriend.
Australian director Robert Connolly wrote the script for the movie and will also direct the feature. The move is based on Suelette Dreyfus’ 1997 novel “Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier,” a book she co-wrote with Assange.
Ecuador announced Thursday that it would grant Assange political asylum, though the British government called the decision "regrettable," and said Wednesday it has the legal authority to enter Ecuador's embassy in London and arrest Assange.
Assange has been holed up in Ecuador’s London Embassy since June 19 in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he's wanted over allegations that he raped two women. He claims the sex was consensual.
The British government said it would not allow Assange a safe passage out of the country because there was no "legal basis for us to do so."
This report contains reporting from the Associated Press.
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