It is a little disconcerting to see another person using your words, wearing your clothes, going through your experiences – and in the most public way possible.

On April 17, Richard Roxburgh will walk across big screens around the country in The Correspondent, a movie based on the book I wrote about my time in prison in Egypt on terrorism charges. I have watched it through my fingers.

Peter Greste (left) and actor Richard Roxburgh, who portrays him in the movie The Correspondent.Credit: Louie Douvis

By his own admission, Roxburgh is not performing an act of impersonation – he is not trying to be “Peter Greste” – but the script lifts chunks of dialogue that took place, and the wardrobe designers found shirts and jackets remarkably similar to the ones I wore on the job back in 2013. (Even the original hat I was arrested in makes a cameo appearance.)

And while some elements of the story are necessarily ironed out for the cinema and some of the finicky details of life inside our cells are missing, the effect is strangely discombobulating. It is a little like one of those nightmares in which you hover above the earth, watching yourself head towards imminent disaster but powerless to stop it.

As weird as it feels, the movie is perhaps the ultimate fat middle finger to the Egyptian authorities who tried to take my voice away by using the most egregious laws at its disposal.

I was working as a correspondent for the TV news network Al Jazeera, covering an unfolding political crisis. The Muslim Brotherhood had been ousted from........

© The Sydney Morning Herald