Terror's Advocate

French lawyer Jacques Vergès is a character worthy of the most intricate thriller. Over several decades, he’s made a career of defending some of the most despised figures of our time – from anti-colonial bombers in Algeria, to left-wing extremists like Carlos the Jackal, to right-wing dictators like Slobodan Milosevic.

At the height of his career, he disappeared for an eight-year period that no investigator has ever been able to account for. Then he reappeared – refusing to disclose where he had been – and continued where he left off, taking on even more controversial clients.
Such a morally ambiguous character might put off most directors. But Barbet Schroeder has always been drawn to this type of man. His fiction film Reversal of Fortune adapted the true story of another lawyer defending a dubious client, and his documentaries such as Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait and The Charles Bukowski Tapes are populated with dark personalities.

In filming Terror's Advocate, Schroeder gained access not only to Vergès himself but also to several of his former clients, who have never before given such candid interviews on camera. He takes us into their shadowy world where one country’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
Schroeder has said he approaches his fiction films like documentaries and his documentaries like fiction. Terror's Advocate plays out like a gripping detective story where the mysteries are manifold and the characters larger than life. But the stakes feel even more dramatic for being real.