Salman Rushdie appears in Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie by Alex Gibney, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Co-Presented by HamptonsFilm & Guild Hall
More than 30 years after Iran issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for author Salman Rushdie’s death over The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program—a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there, in an unrelated incident, that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience—of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through—and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Knife director, Alex Gibney, HamptonsFilm Co-Chair, Alec Baldwin, and HamptonsFilm Chief Creative Officer, David Nugent.
Alex Gibney is an Oscar-, Emmy-, Grammy-, and Peabody-winning filmmaker known for incisive, gripping documentaries. His works include TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE, GOING CLEAR, ENRON, IN RESTLESS DREAMS, and forthcoming films on Elon Musk and Luigi Mangione.
Sponsors
Performing Arts programs are supported by 2026 season sponsors Galia Meiri-Stawski and Axel Stawski, with additional lead support from Henry and Peggy Schleiff, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, Monica and Peter Tessler, and Vital Projects Fund.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Theater: Natascia Ayers and Jim Ciquera, Bonnie and Joel Bergstein, Gene Bernstein and Kathy Walsh, Amy Cooney and Marty Feinman, John and Joan D’Addario, Suzanne and John Golden, Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan, Steve Pesner, in memory of his wife, Michèle Pesner, whose entire life was devoted to all aspects of culture, The Schaffner Family Foundation, Lisa Schultz and Ezriel Kornel, Stacey and Oliver Stanton, and Susi and Peter Wunsch.
