Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time". His works as director include ,Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, ', ', ' ; ', Casino Jack and the United States of Money and Taxi to the Dark Side, focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002. In 2019 he released his newest documentary, Citizen K, about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian billionaire exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Life and career
Gibney was born in New York City, the son of Harriet and journalist Frank Gibney. His stepfather was the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. After attending Pomfret School, Gibney earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and later attended the UCLA Film School. Gibney developed an anti-authoritarian view from the journalism career of his father: "They say to succeed you're supposed to suck up and kick down. Well, he was the classic guy who sucked down and kicked up, which is never a good career path! He was at Time, then fired. At Newsweek, fired. At Life, fired." His stepfather was equally an influence on him. "There was something about my father, my mother, and then my stepfather, I think they all ruddered against authority in their own peculiar ways. And that probably rubbed off on me, too." He served as executive producer of the documentary No End in Sight. His film ' is a documentary based on Hunter S. Thompson's life and his "Gonzo" style of journalism. Under executive producer Martin Scorsese, Gibney was series producer for the PBS television series The Blues and writer-producer of The Pacific Century . Several films he directed and/or produced have been screened at the Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and Tribeca Film Festivals. In an interview with Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life, Gibney credits much influence on his filming style to The Exterminating Angel:
dark, but it's also wickedly funny and mysterious in ways that can’t be reduced to a simple, analytical explanation. I always thought that's what's great about movies sometimes—the best movies have to be experienced; they can’t just be written about.
In an interview with David Poland for MIFF, Gibney disagrees with the view from nowhere, the idea that journalists can be objective:
"Objectivity is dead. There's no such thing as objectivity. When you're making a film, a film can't be objective.
Gibney's frequent documentary mode is the expository style akin to Ken Burns- in which the filmmaker relies on testimony from subjects involved in the subject matter and voice-over narration. Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival where it won Best Documentary. The film probes the killing of a taxi driver named Dilawar at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Gibney is president of Jigsaw Productions, which produces independent films, music documentaries, and TV mini-series. He has been honored by the Yale Film Studies program for his contributions to film culture. In 2010, Utne Reader listed Gibney as one of "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." His 2013 film ', is a comprehensive look at WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning. The Wikileaks organization itself has objected to the way Gibney portrayed it, and has posted a line-by-line rebuttal to the entire film. In 2015, Gibney received the inaugural Hitchens Prize, awarded in honor of the late writer Christopher Hitchens. Gibney had previously collaborated with Hitchens on a documentary film adaption of Hitchens's book The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Gibney's most recent projects include work on The Armstrong Lie, Catching Hell, Going Clear, Dirty Money, The Looming Tower, and , which premiered at Sundance 2019. Gibney writes for The Atlantic, and has written for Huffington Post and other publications. He has been a resident of Summit, New Jersey.
Suing distributors
On June 19, 2008, Gibney's company filed for arbitration, arguing that THINKFilm failed to properly distribute and promote his film Taxi to the Dark Side. He is suing for over a million dollars in damages. He stated that the film has grossed only $280,000.
