Documentary on Salman Rushdie’s Recovery from 2022 Knife Attack Premieres at Sundance

A new documentary, *Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie*, directed by Alex Gibney, premiered to a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles Rushdie’s physical and emotional recovery following the 2022 stabbing attack at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. The author, who lost his right eye and suffered severe injuries, narrates his own experience in the film, which opens with a reconstruction of the 27-second-long assault. The footage, much of it recorded by his wife, poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths, shows both the brutality of the attack and Rushdie’s resilience during his rehabilitation. Griffiths stated that documenting the process was initially a coping mechanism but grew into an act of defiance against political violence. During a post-screening discussion, Rushdie reflected that the documentary’s broader message is about the dangers of ignorance and authoritarianism, arguing that culture often becomes the enemy of despotic regimes. Gibney echoed these sentiments, drawing parallels between Rushdie’s ordeal and modern examples of political violence. The documentary revisits the international outrage over *The Satanic Verses* in 1988 and how the fatwa against Rushdie still resonates. Ultimately, the film portrays not only Rushdie’s survival but also a wider struggle for freedom of expression and humanity against extremism and fear.