Salman Rushdie Documentary Set Based on His Memoir ‘Knife,’ With Alex Gibney Directing (EXCLUSIVE)
Salman Rushdie will be the center of a new documentary from Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director behind “Taxi to the Dark Side” snd “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.” Tentatively titled “Knife,” the docu is inspired by Rushdie’s memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” which was published in April.
The book is an account of the author’s life and career, and also depicts the 2022 assassination attempt against the Indian-born, British-American novelist and the long recovery that followed. Rushdie was stabbed 15 times in in Chautauqua, N.Y. by a 24-year old New Jersey man with a knife. Rushdie’s neck, eye, and chest were targeted, causing the writer to collapse on stage during a talk he was giving at Chautauqua’s amphitheater stage.
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Rushdie, 76, lost vision in one eye and was left incapacitated in one hand after the attempted murder.
Gibney’s “Knife” will explore Rushdie’s recovery “in the broadest sense,” according to a press release. Through Rushdie’s wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ personal footage, which has never been seen by the public, the doc will follow the writer during not only his physical recovery but also the recovery of his spirit and hope for the future. In “Knife”, Rushdie writes “it’s a story in which hatred — the knife as a metaphor of hate — is answered, and finally overcome, by love.”
“I’m delighted we have Alex working with us on this film,” says Rushdie. “We have long admired his brilliant work, from “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “Going Clear” to his recent portrait of Paul Simon. There couldn’t be a better person for the job.”
To capture Rushdie’s life, Gibney will move between Griffith’s raw, intimate footage, movie clips, excerpts from Rushdie’s books, new interviews, and archival images, which will include the fatwa called on Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomenei in 1989 for his book, “The Satanic Verses.”
“It’s a delight and an honor to make this film about Salman Rushdie, an extraordinary novelist, a funny, poignant and resilient man, and one of the world’s most courageous defenders of freedom of speech,” says Gibney. “The opportunity to make this film about his recovery – in the broadest sense of the term – comes at a critical time. It gives me hope.”
Gibney recently began production on “Knife.” The film, being produced by Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, does not yet have a distributor.
Gibney’s most recent doc “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” debuted on MGM+ on March 17. In October 2023 Universal Pictures Content Group acquired international rights to the director’s upcoming doc “Musk” about entrepreneur and businessman Elon Musk. HBO Documentary Films will release “Musk” in North America.
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