“It’s about getting to know the first family of Israel in a whole new way,” director Alexis Bloom (Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg) says of her upcoming documentary The Bibi Files. The film features never-before-seen police interrogation tapes of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, his wife, Sara, their son Yair, and many of their close associates, including two high-profile figures: Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The leaked videos offer an inside look at evidence Israeli prosecutors collected during its corruption probe into the country’s longest-serving head of state, an investigation that led to Netanyahu’s 2019 indictment on charges of breach of trust, bribery, and fraud. (Netanyahu has denied all charges. The case is ongoing.)
His government’s subsequent efforts to reform the judicial system were seen by critics as a way for Netanyahu to legislate away his legal problems by lessening the court’s power and were met with mass public demonstrations. Then, in the fall of 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. “Post–October 7,” Bloom tells VF, the war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon “became another tool to stay in power.”
Three separate cases came out of the investigation into Netanyahu; to understand them, Bloom partnered with Israeli investigative journalist and political analyst Raviv Drucker. (Netayanhu has unsuccessfully sued Drucker three times, and as a result of this film, has asked Israel’s attorney general to investigate him.) The film’s greatest coup, though, is the interrogation footage. Bloom is loath to explain how thousands of hours’ worth of leaked videos—mostly in Hebrew, and often with poor picture and audio quality—came into her possession, beyond saying that the windfall was “both a gift, and an enormous challenge.” (The documentary’s producer, Alex Gibney, has said the footage was received unexpectedly.)
The Bibi Files opens with Netanyahu sitting down at his desk in his unremarkable Balfour Street office for one of approximately seven police interviews. A parade of people with first-hand knowledge of his and his family’s alleged crimes give their own accounts in police interrogation rooms. We learn about Netanyahu’s penchant for Cohiba Behike cigars (“$1,100 US dollars for a box of 10,” Sheldon Adelson exclaims to the police), and Sara’s passion for pink Champagne. How does the politician afford such extravagances? According to what Drucker says in the film, Netanyahu “keeps around him, in almost every part of the world, someone like a sugar daddy.”
Milchan’s former personal assistant, Hadas Klein, says in the film that she was responsible for making sure Israel’s first lady never ran out of her favorite pricey beverage. Milchan tells the police that he sometimes personally delivered it to the Netanyahu residence in a cooler: “I felt that the prime minster’s wife will torture him if she didn’t have a little to drink,” he quips to investigators. Sara did make her sacrifices: According to Bloom, Milchan persuaded her to trade Moët & Chandon for another type of champagne that was less expensive. “But she had specific requirements, and would send back Prosecco, and lesser [brands].”
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