Laura Poitras Collection [Blu-ray]

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That’s when Poitras, with help from the late Participant executive Diane Weyermann, made a deal with Goldin to do a series of audio interviews at her house. “I knew it was going to give me a kind of intimacy that wouldn’t be there if there was a camera and a crew,” said Poitras. “It was just an instinct.” It happened right after Thanksgiving and I was in the middle of drafting an op-ed for the New York Times about the Espionage Act and Julian Assange. I was planning to publish it in December, so I felt this would have been distracting as these communities are crisscrossed. I just didn’t want to have two public statements out there. What I wanted to say about Julian Assange was really important and I didn’t want to take any attention off that. So I started writing my statement and then I made the decision not to release before the holidays. And then … well, you know. The beginning of the year has had other news with higher priorities. When we interviewed Edward Snowden, we had about a week where we were publishing stories before his name was public. Those days are precious in terms of telling the public the information that somebody risks their live to expose, and also to give the whistleblower a chance to talk to a lawyer. If I had made the same mistakes that The Intercept made with Edward Snowden, he would’ve been arrested and that would’ve been the first story. Think about how different his life would’ve been if I’d made those kinds of errors. Welcome to a real-time documentary that doesn't have a political agenda yet covers the most controversial and important whistle blowing in this century. Edward Snowden disclosed extensive information mining of US citizens by NSA and other agencies. Laura Poitras's thrilling but sometimes slow documentary takes us to Hong Kong to witness Snowden's alarming the world about the US spying on its citizens and world leaders among others.

Laura Poitras - IMDb

D'Addario, Daniel (February 22, 2015). "Citizenfour Wins Best Documentary at the Oscars". Time . Retrieved February 22, 2015. Creative Capital (January 10, 2008). "Laura Poitras". Creative Capital. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015 . Retrieved December 3, 2015. Peter Walker (December 24, 2013). "Edward Snowden broadcasts Channel 4's alternative Christmas Day message". the Guardian . Retrieved October 22, 2014. Poitras was one of the founding editors of the online newspaper, The Intercept. [16] On November 30, 2020, Poitras was fired by First Look Media, the parent company of The Intercept, allegedly in relation to her criticism of The Intercept's handling of the Reality Winner controversy. [17] [18] Early life [ edit ]It is hard to watch Risk and not compare it with Citizenfour. In fact, for a long time Poitras thought they were going to be one and the same film. Assange and Snowden seem such different men, I say. “I don’t feel it’s my job to judge and compare them – but, yes, they have different motivations. Certainly, my feelings that come through in the film are much more conflicted.” Is there a moral purity to what Snowden did? “People would ask me when I was releasing the film: Is he a hero? People are defined by their actions, and he did something deeply heroic. And I think it was selfless. He knew the consequences could be the end of his freedom or the end of his life.”

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed director Laura Poitras on

Poitras vindicates and promotes other types of films: Field of Vision, the production company she co-founded, supports documentary filmmakers from all over the world, especially in underrepresented areas and communities. Or Descendant, Margaret Brown’s film about the quest for justice by the heirs of a group of slaves, which she quotes in conversation. “It’s not only the stories that are important, but also who tells them. We have to fight for all the creative freedom and independence for creators and create precedents so that contracts are better for other filmmakers, and so that stories are really told by the author and not coming from the funder.” Creators should be free to use any ingredients they want, even if these are not to some people’s liking. In fact, it’s better that way. Published: 11:05 PM Laura Poitras’ opioids-crisis documentary wins Golden Lion at Venice film festival In her article, Poitras cites Santiago Mitre’s Argentina,1985, an Oscar contender for best international film, as an example of the courage and risks of prosecuting someone as powerful as the military junta of the 1970s dictatorship. “A society that does not confront its crimes is condemned to repeat them, and to reward those who committed them.” For this reason, among others, the director insists on going against the grain. It later emerged that, because of Citizenfour, the CIA tried to have Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald labeled as “information brokers” and “agents of a foreign power.” They didn’t manage it, but they tried. “And that was under Obama.” The filmmaker, in fact, recalls that she prepared a Plan B in case she ended up facing charges over the film and she moved to Berlin, where she felt further away from the reach of the US government.

In the News

Laura Poitras is a filmmaker and journalist. Her films include All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and Citizen Four

Laura Poitras: Astro Noise | Whitney Museum of American Art Laura Poitras: Astro Noise | Whitney Museum of American Art

Poitras and others described Assange's statements about women as "troubling". [67] [66] [68] Assange alleges in the film that he is the victim of a radical feminist conspiracy over his being wanted for questioning on sexual assault allegations by the Swedish authorities. [68] In the film, he argues that one of the women in question had potentially alternate motivation because she founded Gothenburg’s largest lesbian nightclub. [68] According to Poitras, Assange disapproved of the film because it included scenes showing his "troubling relationship with women". [66] Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations". Guardian. April 14, 2014 . Retrieved April 20, 2014. Would she have had more respect for Assange if he had returned to Sweden to be interviewed by the police? She exhales loudly. “I don’t know. I do think his fear of US indictment is not paranoia. The investigation is massive, and he has very good reason to be concerned about being extradited to the US.” Russell also thanked Guadagnino. “He’s been a great friend to me and I love him so dearly,” she said. Poitras, Laura (September 20, 2016). "Field of Vision Is Moving". The Intercept . Retrieved January 12, 2017.In an interview with The Washington Post about Citizenfour shortly before the film's release, Poitras said that she considered herself to be the narrator of the film but made a choice not to be seen on camera: The exhibition itself is a kind of archive, but its poetics, as [Edward] Snowden suggests, are less vested in the archive than in how its data is encountered at the level of everyday life.” Official Awards of the 79th Venice Film Festival". September 10, 2022 . Retrieved September 10, 2022. Greenwald, Poitras, Gellman, MacAskill: key in NSA coverage". Phys.org . Retrieved October 22, 2014.

Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Digs Into Nan Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Digs Into Nan

WikiLeaks attorneys blast Citizen Four maker Poitras". Newsweek. May 17, 2017 . Retrieved April 4, 2019.Somaiya, Ravi; Cohen, Noam (April 12, 2014). "Journalists Who Broke News on N.S.A. Surveillance Return to the U.S." NYT . Retrieved April 15, 2014.