The Gardener, the Buddhist & the Spy

A double agent’s attempt to expose corruption ends in his downfall.

Rob Moore, a former TV producer, lives a life of secrets and deception. For five years he has pretended to be a journalist and documentary filmmaker to gain the trust of anti-asbestos activists. In reality, he has worked undercover as a spy for the asbestos industry mafia. When his true identity is revealed, the shock waves hit the activists hard.

But Rob refuses to be labelled a cynical fraud. He says he in fact was a double agent secretly gathering evidence against his own employers - greedy oligarchs and multinational corporations trying to prevent a global ban on asbestos. With the revelation of the spy scandal, Rob's life is in ruins, but he sees an opportunity to regain his credibility. He convinces two veteran British journalists to tell his story about widespread corruption in a podcast.

As the journalists delve deeper into the case, they get increasingly concerned with Rob's mysterious past and the ethical dilemmas of his espionage. The boundaries between truth and lies become blurred. Is Rob a truth-seeking whistleblower or a cynical manipulator? And who controls the narrative? In their attempt to uncover the truth, they realize that they themselves are caught in a web of lies and that Rob’s story may be hiding a threat bigger than anyone could have imagined.

The Gardener, the Buddhist & the Spy is a gripping story about power struggle, failure, and the delicate balance between good and bad.

Official Selection at the 2024 CPH:DOX
                                   

Håvard Bustnes (born 1973) is a multi-award winning director and producer. He is a member of the European Film Academy, and the co-founder of UpNorth Film. Bustnes holds a degree in Directing for Television from the College of Film and TV at Lillehammer and NTNU in Trondheim. His new film The Gardener, the Buddhist & the Spy premiered at CPH:DOX in March. His previous film Phantoms of the Sierra Madre premiered in the International Main Competition at CPH:DOX in 2024. In 2023, his short documentary Behind the Mask premiered at DOC NYC. Earlier films include Name of the Game (original title: Trond Giske - Makta rår), which premiered at IDFA in November 2021 and won the Golden Screen award (Norwegian Emmy), and Golden Dawn Girls which premiered in the IDFA Competition for Feature-Length Documentary in November 2017, was selected for more than 50 film festivals, and won the Human International Documentary Film Festival, One World Brussels, and Nordic/Docs. Other earlier films are Two Raging Grannies, Health Factory, and Big John. The latter won the Norwegian “Oscar”, the Amanda Award, for Best Theatrical Documentary. Bustnes’ films have been selected for more than 100 festivals worldwide and have had theatrical releases in several countries around the world.