For the past few years, filmmaker Brian Knappenberger has been working on a documentary called “We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.” It was the first real effort on the part of a filmmaker to document the history of one of the most notorious groups in contemporary history. After a leak and a few edits, the film is finally available to all.
Speaking to Wired, Knappenberger said that his Anonymous documentary is now available through the film’s official Web site as a DRM-free download. He said that he wanted to “do it Louis C.K.-style” as it fit better with the idea behind Anonymous. That’s not to say that the film wasn’t going to be in theaters. Knappenberger told Wired that he actually walked away from a few lucrative distribution deals due to his desire of wanting to go DRM-free.
Of course, the big question now is whether or not the film is worth watching again if you’ve already seen the leaked cut of the film. Knappenberger said that the leaked version was an incomplete cut. The final version of “We Are Legion” contains new footage that details the betrayal of Sabu from earlier this year.
Since then, there have been a number of arrests and other activities from within Anonymous that would definitely warrant inclusion in the documentary. The only thing is that the film would never be finished if Knappenberger kept on including new content. He had to cut it off somewhere just to finish the film.
Knappenberger doesn’t expect to recoup the costs of making the film, but he would donate 10 percent of all sales to the Electronic Frontier Foundation if he were to make a profit on the film.
The film is available for streaming and DRM-free download now for only $9.99. It’s also available on iTunes starting today as well. The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film, both of which contain an extra 22 minutes of footage, will be available on November 23.