Oliver Stone knows who really killed the president. Now, his new documentary sets out to convince you.

The 1963 assassination of US president John F Kennedy still fascinates a nation whose values it profoundly altered. Thirty years after his controversial film JFK, Oliver Stone (Snowden, Natural Born Killers) brings all the craft and conviction he’s honed over his politically engaged filmmaking career to sift through recently declassified evidence. He’s out to test the popular conspiracy theory that the CIA orchestrated Kennedy’s murder; could it be conspiracy fact?

Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and Donald Sutherland (who played Mr X in JFK), and selected for the inaugural Cannes Premiere section, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass fans the still-burning desire for truth harboured by many, but it’s at its best when it examines the Kennedy assassination’s after-effects, including its role in entrenching racism. Through a meticulous, sometimes uncanny use of archival footage, alongside commentary by history, medical and legal experts, Stone yanks the president’s death from the misty embrace of myth, reminding us that this was a shockingly brutal slaying of a man who could have helped to build a better world.

“Riveting … Stone’s indefatigable efforts at unearthing evidence and holding it up to the light for intensive examination properly keeps the case for the prosecution alive.” – Deadline Hollywood