Director of 'Zero Days': I Hope My Film is Shown in Iran

The 66th Berlin Film Festival was notably influenced by the presence of documentary films. The winner of the Golden Bear award was an Italian documentary titled 'Fire at Sea,' which focuses on the immigration and refugee crisis. Another significant documentary at the festival was 'Zero Days,' which deals with cyber attacks. This investigative and revealing documentary provides new details about the Stuxnet virus attack on Iran's nuclear program. Alex Gibney, the director of this documentary, is one of the most well-known documentary filmmakers today. He won an Oscar in 2007 for his film 'Taxi to the Dark Side,' and his other films, such as 'The Armstrong Lie' and 'Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,' are considered some of the most talked-about documentaries in recent years. This interview took place a day after the premiere of his latest documentary at the Berlin Film Festival. How did you come up with the idea to make a film about cyber warfare? My producer, who produced one of my previous documentaries called 'We Steal Secrets,' came to me and said to look into this, it’s very interesting. He was talking about the Stuxnet story. I took a quick look and saw it was an interesting espionage story. So I started working on it, but I didn’t know exactly where it would lead me. Before that, did you have any knowledge about Stuxnet? Very little and superficial. I didn’t know many details. Therefore, arriving at the story of this documentary was the result of a lot of education and research. How did you obtain this amount of information after starting your work? We see a lot of fresh information in the film. Well, it took a long time. It was a combination of finding people who were willing to speak openly and those who didn’t want their names mentioned. It required a lot of digging. In the film, we see that you traveled to many countries: Israel, Taiwan, Russia, but you didn’t go to Iran. Why? I tried. I approached the Iranian government and said that I was making a film about this subject and wanted to come to Iran and film. I provided a list of my interview requests and other matters, but we never succeeded in obtaining a visa. What was their reaction? They were encouraging, but we never saw any results later. I’m not sure about this because they didn’t tell me anything, but I think during the time I was making this film, nuclear negotiations were ongoing, so my request remained pending to see the outcome of the negotiations. Again, I say I’m not sure about this. Do you think it was only because of the negotiations? That’s what I think. Of course, it’s clear that in a case like the Stuxnet story, this was a weapon used against Iran, so I thought this was a topic that various people would like to talk about, but I couldn’t get permission to enter. For example, I really tried and was eager to speak with one of the survivors from the assassination operations of those years, who had a significant role in Iran’s nuclear program and had previously held a position, but they didn’t grant entry and we couldn’t talk. We even tried to get help from people inside, but they were afraid. Did you try to speak with Iranian officials abroad as well? In the film, we see that only one person expresses pro-Iran views. We tried to speak with high-ranking individuals, but we faced difficulties in convincing them to talk. The person we ultimately spoke with, of course, is not high-ranking, but he was interesting, smart, and aware of the situation and able to combine and present various points in his remarks. In the film, we see that there was another plan called 'Nitro Zeus' for attacking Iran's infrastructure. Did you obtain more information about this than what we saw in the film? Yes, we did. Some of it was presented in an article published by David Sanger and James Risen in The New York Times. I think we will provide more information about this plan in the coming days. In your documentary, we see that Iran's cyber army reacted to cyber attacks twice. How powerful were these attacks? Do you have details beyond what we saw in the film? Well, the computers of Aramco were essentially wiped clean, and banks were closed for several days. The U.S. government was fully aware of the attack on the banks but decided not to retaliate. Part of it was because the malware's entry point was actually in a third country, and the U.S. State Department was afraid that if it attacked that entry point, it would be considered an aggressive act against that third country. Do you think the reaction of the Iranian people to your film will be what? Have you thought about this? I have thought about it and am very curious to know these reactions. I hope the film is shown in Iran. I’m eager to see the reactions, but I can’t predict. Are you making efforts to enable the film to be shown to the people of Iran? Well, the film has been shown publicly for the first time. So we are just starting to show it to various countries. We definitely want the film to be shown and seen in Iran, and that is my hope.