Freedom Fest: Award-winning Julian Assange doc to screen in Manchester

A new festival dedicated to privacy, digital rights and freedom technology heads to Manchester this November.

Freedom Fest takes over the Pendulum Hotel on Sat 21 Nov. Ahead of that, the team will be hosting an exclusive screening of award-winning Julian Assange documentary, Eugene Jarecki’s The Six Billion Dollar Man.

Showing in the Pendulum Hotel’s Cotton Theatre on Thu 19 Nov, the documentary examines WikiLeaks, state power and press freedom through privileged access to WikiLeaks footage and archives. The film was screened in the official selection at Cannes in 2025, where it received the Jury’s Special Prize at L’Œil d’or’s tenth anniversary.

On the day of Freedom Fest itself, visitors can expect a programme shaped by the question: ‘How do we make sure technology expands human freedom rather than restricts it?’ Through talks, panels and hands-on workshops, it covers five common things most people deal with every day: identity, data, money, speech and choice.

Bosses say the event has been built for anyone who might be curious about the subject, not just technologists. A glimpse of Saturday’s programme so far is below:

• 10:05 – Nicholas Anthony, Human Rights Foundation CBDC Tracker, on central bank digital currencies
• 11:05 – Oscar Pacey on digital independence
• 14:10 – Amber on protecting your smartphone with a private, secure operating system
• 14:30 – Q&A on The Six Billion Dollar Man with Nils Melzer, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Davide Dormino and the film’s team
• 15:30 – Free Cities, Timothy Allen on the global movement to build freer societies

Visitors can also take part in hands-on workshops led by GrapheneOS, Omarchy (Nathan Day and Derek Ross) and Nostr.com’s Ben Arc, with more still to be added. 

Freedom Fest take place alongside Bitfest, a four-day festival based at the Pendulum Hotel from Thu 19 Nov – Sun 22 Nov, with its own programme and space, evening events at The Shack NQ and a Sunday social around the city.

Ticket holders for both events get access to the exclusive screening. Bitfest also includes Nostrshire — the UK’s first and only full-scale Nostr (an open communications protocol) conference — a hackathon, a Bitcoin art gallery, the New Music Economy Concert (a concert powered by open-source technologies empowering independent musicians) and a series of community-led social events on Sunday, including a walk through some of Manchester’s historical sites.

Nat Cole, Bitfest/Freedom Fest co-organiser, said, “People in the UK are starting to wake up to a lot of the things around digital rights and freedoms that many people we work with have been building the escape routes for and have been talking about for many years. Freedom Fest brings not only talks but also practical sessions and solutions for everyday citizens wanting to know what’s happening and how to protect themselves.

“It’s naturally adjacent to Bitfest, as the inception of Bitcoin itself as an open, free monetary system came from the cypherpunk movement that has been fighting against state surveillance and for a free, open and decentralised internet since the 80s and 90s”

Tickets to both Freedom Fest and Bitfest are available now. Book Freedom Fest tickets here. Book Bitfest tickets here. Use the code FFMW10 to get 10% off your ticket.