The works of Irish documentary director Sinéad O’Shea tend to turn heads and cause debate. Her latest film, All About the Money, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before recently screening at the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF), is no different.
Exploring themes of money, power and revolution, the doc follows James Cox Chambers, who goes by Fergie Chambers, a member of the family whose holdings include Cox Enterprises, as he travels the world in pursuit of making a difference. No stranger to controversy, the doc shows him discussing what drives him and the world.
The film also goes into his pro-Palestine and anti-Israel activism, which has landed him in the headlines in recent months. In July, Spanish authorities arrested Chambers; he is being held in Madrid. The Guardian then reported that FBI agents raided his Ibiza, Spain, vacation rental. The U.S. has made an extradition request, citing Chambers’ alleged financial support of Hamas and other charges.
O’Shea, who wrote and directed the doc, produced by Claire McCabe, Harry Vaughn, Katie Holly, and Sigrid Dyekjær, with SOS Productions and Real Lava co-producing, caught up with THR about the recent activity surrounding the man at the center of her doc, which will screen in U.K. and Ireland cinemas from Oct. 30 after a recent run at the BFI London Film Festival (LFF).
“The case is sealed, but his lawyers have told me that [one of the] accusations is that he transferred money from the U.S. and used it to finance Hamas,” O’Shea says. As she shows in the film, Chambers moved to Tunisia where he bought a soccer club after his pro-Palestine activism led to arrests following what critics called an ill-conceived protest of an Israeli defense contractor. “He went to Tunisia and invested in a [soccer] club,” says the filmmaker about what she has documented. “So it’s a really strange, but very serious, accusation against him that that money was used for Hamas. It just doesn’t really make any sense to me. … I think … they will have an extensive paper trail of how that money worked.”
His legal team has said that Chambers has strictly donated to lawful Gaza and Palestine humanitarian and philanthropic aid projects, and O’Shea believes them.
“Yes, he was a huge donor to Palestine. And don’t get me wrong. I know he’s difficult,” she says about Chambers. “Fergie has some views that are unacceptable and extreme, but he also has things to say which are insightful, particularly about inequality in the U.S.”
Any of her films “is not an expression of my precise worldview,” she also emphasizes. “It’s my job to [show] people in a film articulate theirs. … But I think it will be very difficult for him to get a fair trial if he went to the United States. I think the atmosphere there has become so polarized. There’s lots of nuance, I believe, within the film.” She was seen holding a “Free Fergie Chambers” sign at an LFF screening of her film.
The Irish filmmaker shared that the recent flurry of developments led her to update the end of All About the Money. She has added a text card that “really just states the facts as we know them because there has been a lot of speculation,” she explains.
The text card reads: “In summer 2026, Fergie told the director he was being followed. A few weeks later, he was arrested in Spain. The United States is seeking his extradition. He’s currently imprisoned in Madrid.”
All in all, you can likely expect much discussion when All About the Money screens at DOC NYC on Nov. 14 and when the film comes into U.K. cinemas at the end of the current month. After all, the activist group Palestine Action has been designated as a terrorist organization in the U.K. since 2025, which regularly causes debate between critics and supporters of that decision. O’Shea expresses concerns about it, sharing that she feels that the ban “doesn’t make any sense” and risks “criminalizing anybody who expresses support for Palestine.” It seems like she’s ready for more debates ahead.
