More than 30 years after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s death over THE SATANIC VERSES, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua, New York to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. There, during an event celebrating a writer-refuge program, a young man rushed the stage and attempted to kill him with a knife.

Drawing on Rushdie’s writing, including his memoir KNIFE: MEDITATIONS AFTER AN ATTEMPTED MURDER, Academy Award®-winner Alex Gibney’s (FINDING FELA, CIFF 2014) documentary is both a testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attack. Never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths, offers an intimate account of his physical and emotional recovery, alongside archival material tracing his career and the controversy surrounding THE SATANIC VERSES.

Blending reportage with fictionalized dialogue, Gibney probes the motivations behind the attack while exploring Rushdie’s extraordinary resilience and the love that sustained him. Ultimately, KNIFE argues that art itself can be an act of resistance.