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Knife: The Attempted Murder of
Salman Rushdie
Documentary by Alex Gibneyy
Discussion to Follow
Playing Sunday, Sept. 27 at 4 pm
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.
Past Screenings at the Film Society of Summit
BONNARD, PIERRE AND MARTHA
DRAMA by Martin provost
Discussion to Follow
COMING SOON
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
The beautiful and transporting new historical drama from multi award-winning director Martin Provost ('Séraphine', 'The Midwife') about the turbulent love story between the famous post-Impressionist painter and his lesser-known - but highly influential - wife. 1893. When aspiring French painter Pierre Bonnard (Macaigne) - a protégé of Claude Monet - meets Marthe de Méligny (de France), he has no idea that this self-proclaimed aristocrat will become the cornerstone of his life and work. From this moment, though she appears in over a third of his work, she's more than just a muse; together over five decades, the couple will explore creative fulfillment, love and jealousies that challenge the standards of the time, as the film interrogates the great mystery around their relationship. A brilliant story of creation and love, of fame and secrets, and the life of the remarkable artist nicknamed “the painter of happiness”. Provost’s vision for this material is clear and concise; what may appear as a traditional account of its subjects soon moves beyond conventions and evolves into something much more resonant and profound.
SING SING DRAMA
directed by Greg Kwedar
Discussion to Follow
Playing in January
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group with other incarcerated men. When a wary outsider joins the group, the men decide to stage their first original comedy, in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors. 13 actors — a majority of the cast — are former convicts who had themselves participated in the rehabilitative theater program. Most of the actors thought they would never again return to a correctional facility, let alone wear the green prison-issue uniforms. The film was shot in the summer of 2022 at the now-decommissioned Downstate Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley. And in a dismaying twist, most of the actors had themselves been detained or processed through Downstate, the very facility that had become their movie set, a haunting reminder of their past selves and an opportunity — a calling, some said — to send a message.
SING SING DRAMA
directed by Greg Kwedar
Discussion to Follow
Playing in January
Madison Community Arts Center
10 Kings Road, Madison
Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group with other incarcerated men. When a wary outsider joins the group, the men decide to stage their first original comedy, in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors. 13 actors — a majority of the cast — are former convicts who had themselves participated in the rehabilitative theater program. Most of the actors thought they would never again return to a correctional facility, let alone wear the green prison-issue uniforms. The film was shot in the summer of 2022 at the now-decommissioned Downstate Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley. And in a dismaying twist, most of the actors had themselves been detained or processed through Downstate, the very facility that had become their movie set, a haunting reminder of their past selves and an opportunity — a calling, some said — to send a message.