RFK Must Die

Infobox Film
name = RFK Must Die


image_size =
caption =
director = Shane O'Sullivan
producer = Shane O'Sullivan
starring = Robert Kennedy
Sirhan Sirhan
Munir Sirhan
Sandra Serrano
Paul Schrade
music = Pyratek
cinematographer = George Dougherty
editing = Shane O'Sullivan
distributor = Soda Pictures (UK)
E2 Films (US theatrical)
Dokument Films (US DVD)
3DD(sales)
released = November 20, 2007 (US DVD) May 16, 2008 (UK theatrical) June 5, 2008 (US theatrical)
runtime = 102 minutes (theatrical) 139 minutes (US DVD)
country = UK
website = http://www.rfkmustdie.com
imdb_id = 1047517

RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy is an investigative documentary by Irish writer and filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan. The film expands on his earlier reports for BBC Newsnight and the Guardian and explores what really happened the night Bobby Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5th, 1968. The title comes from a page of "automatic writing" found in [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan's_notebook Sirhan Sirhan's notebook] after the shooting, in which he wrote ‘R.F.K. must die - RFK must be killed Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated… before June 5 ‘68.'

Running on an anti-war ticket, Kennedy had just won the California Democratic primary and was confident he would challenge Nixon for the White House. As he walked through the hotel pantry, shots rang out and he fell to the floor, fatally wounded by a bullet to the brain, fired from an inch behind his right ear.

24-year old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan was convicted as the 'lone assassin' but witnesses placed Sirhan several feet in front of Kennedy and for forty years, he claims he has never been able to remember the shooting. Defense psychiatrist Bernard L. Diamond concluded Sirhan was in a hypnotic state at the time of the shooting and FBI agent William Bailey saw extra bullet holes in the pantry suggesting a second gunman may have been involved.

An attractive girl in a polka-dot dress was seen with Sirhan in the pantry moments before the shooting. Minutes later, a girl of similar description ran down a fire escape, past Kennedy volunteer Sandra Serrano, exclaiming 'We shot him! We shot Kennedy!' The LAPD couldn't find her, so they harshly interrogated Serrano until she retracted her statement. The LAPD concluded the girl didn't exist but in her first filmed interview since the night of the shooting, Sandra Serrano still sticks to her story.

In his first filmed interview for almost forty years, Sirhan's younger brother Munir - Sirhan's only surviving family member - describes Sirhan's upbringing and what he perceives as the many injustices in the case. Today, Sirhan is America's last surviving political assassin, locked away in the same California prison as Charles Manson for a crime he claims he can't remember. Since 9-11, some revisionist historians have cast him as "the first Arab terrorist" despite the fact he and his family are Christian and have been living in Pasadena since 1957.

After a three-year investigation, [http://www.rfkmustdie.com RFK Must Die] was theatrically released in the UK on May 16th and in New York on June 5th, the fortieth anniversary of the assassination.

The film's release comes as [http://www.anopenandshutcase.com new forensic analysis] of the only known audio recording of the shooting concludes there were thirteen shots fired from two guns in the Ambassador pantry and that Sirhan Sirhan's Iver Johnson revolver did fire the bullet that killed Robert Kennedy, prompting new calls for the case to be reopened.

O'Sullivan's accompanying book on the case, [http://www.whokilledbobby.net Who Killed Bobby? The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy] was published by Union Square Press on June 3rd.

External links

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* [http://www.rfkmustdie.com Official website]