Cannes 2025: Eugene Jarecki’s film on Julian Assange wins first Golden Globe documentary honour
For the first time, the Golden Globes Awards and the Artemis Rising Foundation, a non-profit organisation, have joined hands in honouring brilliance in documentary filmmaking. The inaugural award was vested upon director Eugene Jarecki for his documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man which chronicles the trials and tribulations in the life of journalist Julian Assange.
The award was presented to Jarecki during the Cannes Film Festival 2025 at the Plage des Palmes on Monday, two days ahead of its premiere.
The Golden Globes previously featured a documentary section from 1972 to 1976, which awarded docu-films like Visions of Eight (1973) and Elvis on Tour (1972). However, the category was abruptly discontinued. Now, five decades later, the format is back in the limelight.
The jury comprised Helen Hoehne, the president of the Golden Globes; Regina K. Scully, CEO of Artemis Rising Foundation; Geralyn White Dreyfous, Academy Award-winning producer; and actress Tessa Thompson. In a statement by the jury, they lauded Jarecki’s efforts and described that he was “combining the skills of a journalist with the voice of a poet.”
This film centres around the saga of Assange, described by Cannes as a “contemporary icon of the right to information”. The story details the WikiLeaks founder's battle against extradition to the US, where he faced a possible sentence of 175 years.
The film The Six Billion Dollar Man is all set to premiere on May 21 at Cannes, with Assange in attendance, alongside the President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, who granted him asylum during his period of incarceration. This will also mark the first time the two are meeting in person, Jarecki mentioned in an interview with Variety.
Assange, in a public statement after his release from Belmarsh maximum security prison, said that he is free today because he “pled guilty to journalism.” This ignited undeniable attention towards topics such as press freedom, right to information, human rights and many more issues, which by extension, the film also aims to create.
“The art and power of documentary is to show the ultimate cost and sacrifice of those who work to expose the truth,” jury member Thompson noted.
This new initiative by the Golden Globes also marks a shift in traditional narratives that have marginalised the documentary genre within the film industry. “By elevating documentary work to prominence, it acknowledges the form’s unique power to illuminate truth and catalyze social discourse—qualities that deserve celebration alongside narrative filmmaking,” said the Golden Globes.
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