This Is Not A Movie

Robert Fisk has the motto “Report what you see with your own eyes. Only then do you come close to the truth" and indeed he has both seen and reported a lot. Having lived in the Middle East for over 40 years, Robert Fisk belongs in the heavyweight class of foreign journalism. From meeting Osama Bin Laden to covering the Syrian civil war, the English journalist has witnessed several of the biggest events and personalities in the region. For almost 50 years, he has reported on war-torn areas in the Middle East for a number of British media and is now working as a commentator for The Independent.

Yung Chang's documentary follows Fisk on reporting trips in the region – with Syria, Palestine and Lebanon as the most important destinations. He returns to places he reported from several years back, and people he previously met. The film takes us into both the present and past of Fisk's work, while discussing what foreign journalism can and should be on the ground.This Is Not a Movie is engaging and well edited: In addition to conveying Robert Fisk's vast knowledge of the region, it manages to pull historical and thematic threads back to the 1970s, discussing working methods, ethics, criticism of Fisk's perspective from the Middle East, and how digital media has changed the terms of journalism and freedom of expression.

Yung Chang (b. 1977) is born and raised in Canada. He has previously directed films like Up the Yangtze (2007), China Heavyweight (2012) and The Fruit Hunters (2012). This Is Not a Movie (2019) is his latest documentary and premiered at Toronto International Film Festival. It has later been screened at IDFA in Amsterdam.