'Recovered' Assange Promotes Cannes Documentary Wearing Gaza T-Shirt

Cannes, France: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has recovered well after his release from jail last year, his wife told AFP ahead of the premiere of a documentary Wednesday that includes never-seen-before footage of the whistleblower.

Assange is at the Cannes Festival to promote the documentary by American filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, wearing a T-shirt with the names of killed Gaza children at a photo session on Tuesday.

The 53-year-old former hacker is not talking to the media, however, with his wife Stella Assange saying, "He'll speak when he's ready."

"We live with incredible nature at our doorstep (in Australia). Julian's very outdoorsy. He always has been. He's really recovered physically and mentally," Stella, a Spanish-Swedish lawyer, told AFP.

Assange was released from a high-security British prison last June after a plea bargain with the US government over Wikileaks's work publishing top-secret military and diplomatic information.

He had spent five years behind bars fighting extradition from Britain and another seven holed up in the Ecuador embassy in London where he claimed political asylum.

Award-winning director Jarecki said his film, "The Six Billion Dollar Man", aimed to correct the record about Assange, whose methods and personality still make him a divisive figure.

"I think Julian Assange put himself in harm's way for the principle of informing the public about what corporations and governments around the world are doing in secret," Jarecki told AFP.

Anyone willing to trade years of their life for their principles, "I think you'd have to look at that person as having heroic qualities," he added.

The film includes personal videos handed over by Stella, who initially joined Wikileaks as a legal advisor and went on to have two children with Assange while he was living in the Ecuadorian embassy.

It also features testimony from people who helped spy on Assange, including a private security agent who said he installed bugs accessed by the American security services in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Former "Baywatch" actress and Assange's friend Pamela Anderson, fellow whistleblower Edward Snowden, and Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson also appear.

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