It is one thing to know that Australian journalist Peter Greste was arrested and imprisoned in Egypt while covering for Al Jazeera a military coup in Cairo over Christmas in 2013. It is another to experience it through Greste’s eyes as he opens the door of his room at the Marriott Hotel to the Egyptian military police. He is arrested and has no idea why.

Directed by Kriv Stenders, with a screenplay based on Greste’s memoir, the film follows the foreign correspondent’s descent into the insanity of Egypt’s politicised legal system where he is accused of supporting terrorist group the Muslim Brotherhood because he reported on them for Al Jazeera. The US$1500 he kept in the safe? He said it was for expenses; they said it was to fund terrorism.

Greste’s lawyer tells the court their evidence relates to a time when Greste (Richard Roxburgh) was demonstrably not in Egypt. The court declines to hear this, and at his next appearance the lawyer – who has clearly been pressured by the regime – excuses himself from acting for someone willing to bring Egypt into disrepute.

With a strong screenplay from Peter Duncan, the man behind TV series Rake, none of this feels like a re-enactment.

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Roxburgh gets inside Greste’s unshowy character, and the gaunt face looking at the court from behind a cage could have been him. It is a notably quiet performance devoid of sentimentality and free of heroics.

Greste starts off in solitary, then someone smuggles him in a book. He is reunited with his Al Jazeera bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy (Julian Maroun) and freelance cameraman and producer Baher Mohamed (Rahel Romahn), but there is tension. Who said what under duress during their interrogations?

As the Kafkaesque drama plays out, hopelessness sets in. How can you prevail in a system rigged against you?

Greste’s biggest coup was smuggling out a message early on explaining their plight. His greatest ally was his family, including his brother who stayed in Egypt during the sham trial in which Greste was convicted as a terrorist and sentenced to seven years. The family kept up the fight while Greste kept himself going with push-ups, running laps and playing backgammon.

The international pressure, backed by the ABC, was critical to securing Greste’s release, and Roxburgh reminds us how sensible the journalist remained. He knew the legal process – no matter how flawed – had to be followed so the injustice could be seen for what it was. “This is Egypt – make a deal,” he is told.

Greste didn’t make a deal, and if the appeal failed, he was gearing up to go on a hunger strike. Suddenly, 400 days after his arrest, Greste was released.

There are some interesting side notes that emerge, backed by Greste, who was in the audience for the Adelaide Film Festival’s opening night gala screening. These include how the Australian embassy in Cairo was laughably ineffectual. The efforts of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop aside, his paternal Latvian heritage carried more weight because the EU was Egypt’s biggest trading partner.

Stenders – whose Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan dealt with another piece of history – showed in his winning 2011 family comedy Red Dog that he is a natural filmmaker who understands what notes to hit. Notwithstanding the tedium and despair that Greste endured, the tension stays high as we get a fleeting taste of what it is to be powerless and at the mercy of a brutal regime.

The Correspondent opened the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival and will have a second screening at The Piccadilly on November 2. Peter Greste, Kriv Stenders, actors Richard Roxburgh and Julian Maroun, and producer Carmel Travers will take part in a conversation titled The Correspondent and The Global War on Truth, moderated by journalist Hamish MacDonald, tonight (October 24) at the Capri Theatre.