The Kleptocrats

The documentary follows journalists investigating the disappearance of billions of dollars from a Malaysian state fund. Reporters from major newspapers trace the money: property purchases, film financing and accounts moving among companies. According to the conclusion the reporting reaches, the trail runs up to the highest levels of government, and part of the same money was put into the production of a large budget Hollywood film. The account proceeds not like a crime story but like a work of pursuit; reading documents, meeting sources and waiting. The film gives these findings as the findings of journalism; the legal position of the people named proceeded differently from country to country. The eighty four minute documentary by Sam Hobkinson and Havana Marking was completed in 2018.