Laura Poitras

3.1. Early works

Poitras's early career saw her co-direct, produce, and shoot the documentary Flag Wars (2003) alongside Linda Goode Bryant. The film delves into the complexities of gentrification in Columbus, Ohio, earning praise as an "intriguing sociopolitical docu." Flag Wars received a Peabody Award, was recognized as Best Documentary at the 2003 South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, and secured the Filmmaker Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. It launched the 2003 season of the PBS TV series POV and was nominated for a 2004 Independent Spirit Award and a 2004 Emmy Award. Other early works by Poitras include Oh Say Can You See... (2003) and Exact Fantasy (1995).

Her 2006 film, My Country, My Country, provided an intimate look at the daily lives of Iraqis under U.S. occupation and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary. She followed this with The Oath (2010), a documentary centered on two Yemeni men entangled in America's War on Terror, which won the Excellence in Cinematography Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. These two films form the first parts of a trilogy exploring the post-9/11 landscape, with the final installment, Citizenfour, focusing on how the War on Terror increasingly involved surveillance, covert activities, and actions against whistleblowers.

In 2012, Poitras also produced an "Op-doc" titled The Program for The New York Times's forum of short documentaries. This preliminary work was intended for her trilogy's final part. The Program featured interviews with William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency, who became a whistleblower and detailed the Stellar Wind project. Binney described how the program, originally designed for foreign espionage, was converted in 2001 to spy on U.S. citizens, leading to his concerns about its legality and constitutionality. The Program also suggested that a facility being constructed in Bluffdale, Utah, was part of a domestic surveillance effort, intended to store vast amounts of communication data that could be mined without warrants. Poitras reported that the United States Supreme Court was set to hear arguments on the constitutionality of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorized such facilities.

3.2. Citizenfour and the Snowden disclosures

Citizenfour (2014) stands as a pivotal work in Poitras's career, documenting her groundbreaking encounters with Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who leaked classified information regarding the agency's global surveillance practices. Poitras was one of the initial three journalists to meet Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 and receive copies of the leaked NSA documents, alongside journalist Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald has stated that Poitras and he are the only two individuals with full archives of Snowden's leaked NSA documents. Poitras filmed and edited Citizenfour in Berlin, expressing concerns that her source material might be seized by the U.S. government if she worked within the United States.

The film premiered on October 10, 2014, at the New York Film Festival. Upon its release, film executive Harvey Weinstein publicly stated that Citizenfour had changed his opinion about Edward Snowden, hailing the documentary as "one of the best movies, period." Poitras chose to remain behind the camera, explaining that she views the camera as her primary tool for expression and documentation, akin to a writer using language. Citizenfour received widespread critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2015. Poitras's role in the Snowden revelations was later depicted in the biographical drama film Snowden (2016), directed by Oliver Stone, where she was portrayed by actress Melissa Leo.

3.3. Other significant documentaries

Beyond her trilogy, Poitras has continued to direct and produce other impactful documentaries. In 2014, she co-produced 1971, a documentary about the 1971 raid of FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 18, 2014.

Her 2016 documentary, Risk, delves into the life of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. The film portrays Assange as someone "willing to put everything on the line, risking imprisonment and worse to publish information he believes the public has a right to know." However, the film also sparked controversy, particularly regarding Assange's statements about women, which Poitras and others found "troubling." Assange, in the film, alleges that he is the victim of a "radical feminist conspiracy" concerning sexual assault allegations by Swedish authorities, suggesting that one of the women involved might have had alternative motivations as she founded Gothenburg's largest lesbian nightclub. Poitras indicated that Assange disapproved of the film because it included scenes depicting his "troubling relationship with women." In May 2017, WikiLeaks' lawyers publicly criticized the film in a Newsweek opinion piece, arguing that Poitras had significantly altered the film after its 2016 premiere and that it served to undermine WikiLeaks at a critical time when the Trump administration was considering prosecuting individuals associated with the organization. Poitras later revealed in Risk that she had a brief romantic relationship with Jacob Appelbaum, a key figure in WikiLeaks.

Poitras also contributed to The Year of the Everlasting Storm (2021), a compilation film, and directed Terror Contagion (2021). Her 2022 documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, explores the life and career of photographer and activist Nan Goldin and her efforts to hold Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic. Goldin, known for her work documenting LGBT subcultures and the HIV/AIDS crisis, founded the advocacy group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) in 2017 after her own struggle with Oxycontin addiction. P.A.I.N. specifically targets art institutions for their financial ties to the Sackler family. Poitras stated that Goldin's art and vision have inspired her work for years and influenced generations of filmmakers. The film premiered on September 3, 2022, at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, marking a historic achievement as only the second documentary to win the festival's top prize. It also served as the centerpiece film for the 2022 New York Film Festival and won a Peabody Award at the 84th ceremony in 2024 for "capturing the zeal of an artist eager to use her work to create a new vision for and of the world." The film was also nominated for an Academy Award in 2023.

3.4. Artistic projects

Beyond her traditional filmmaking, Laura Poitras has also engaged with the visual arts through exhibitions and immersive installations. In 2012, she actively participated in the Whitney Biennial exhibition of contemporary American art.

Her solo exhibition, Astro Noise, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in February 2016. This exhibition featured immersive environments that integrated documentary footage, architectural interventions, primary documents, and narrative structures. It was designed to invite visitors to interact with the material Poitras had gathered in "strikingly intimate and direct ways," further exploring themes of surveillance and data.

4.1. Personal experiences with surveillance

Poitras has been subject to extensive monitoring by the U.S. government. She speculates that this began after a wire transfer she sent in 2006 to Riyadh al-Adhadh, an Iraqi medical doctor and Sunni political candidate featured in her 2006 documentary My Country, My Country. Following the completion of the film, Poitras claims she was placed on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) watch list and was informed by airport security that her "threat rating" was the highest assigned by the DHS.

Her work has been significantly hampered by what she describes as constant harassment from border agents during more than three dozen crossings into and out of the United States. She has reported being detained for hours, interrogated, and having her computer, cell phone, and journalistic notes seized, with items sometimes not returned for weeks. On one occasion, she was threatened with being denied re-entry into the United States. In response to an article by Glenn Greenwald detailing these issues, a group of film directors launched a petition protesting the government's treatment of her. In April 2012, during an interview on Democracy Now! about surveillance, Poitras condemned the behavior of elected leaders as "shameful."

In January 2014, Poitras filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to understand the reasons behind her multiple searches, detentions, and interrogations. Receiving no response, she filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and other security agencies in July 2015. Over a year later, Poitras received more than 1,000 pages of material from the federal government. These documents indicated that her repeated detainments were due to U.S. government suspicion that she had prior knowledge of a 2004 ambush on U.S. troops in Iraq, an allegation Poitras vehemently denies.

4.2. Journalism and global disclosures

Poitras played a crucial role in the global surveillance disclosures initiated by Edward Snowden. In 2013, she was one of the first three journalists to meet Snowden in Hong Kong and receive copies of the sensitive NSA documents he leaked. According to Glenn Greenwald, Poitras and he are the only two individuals who possess full archives of Snowden's leaked NSA documents.

Her work in exposing previously secret U.S. intelligence activities earned her the 2013 George Polk Award for National Security Reporting. Her contributions to the NSA reporting, alongside Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, and Barton Gellman, were instrumental in The Guardian and The Washington Post jointly receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2014. Subsequently, she collaborated with Jacob Appelbaum and editors at Der Spiegel to cover further disclosures about mass surveillance, particularly concerning NSA activities in Germany. In December 2013, Poitras filmed, edited, and produced Channel 4's alternative to the Royal Christmas Message by Queen Elizabeth II, featuring Edward Snowden.

In October 2013, Poitras joined Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill to establish an online investigative journalism venture, which became First Look Media, funded by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar's concerns about press freedoms reportedly motivated the creation of this new media outlet. The first publication from this group, a digital magazine named The Intercept, launched on February 10, 2014. Poitras served as one of its founding editors, but stepped down from her editorial role in September 2016 to focus on Field of Vision, a First Look Media project dedicated to non-fiction films. She returned to the U.S. in April 2014, along with Greenwald, to accept awards for their NSA reporting, facing no impediment from U.S. authorities. In May 2014, Poitras reunited with Snowden and Greenwald in Moscow. In September 2021, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017, following the publication of the Vault 7 files, "top intelligence officials lobbied the White House" to label Poitras an "information broker," which would allow for more aggressive investigative tools against her and potentially lead to her prosecution. However, the White House rejected this proposal. Poitras described such attempts as "bone-chilling and a threat to journalists worldwide."

4.3. Advocacy and institutional work

Laura Poitras is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and was named a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, underscoring her significant contributions to her field. She is the founder of Field of Vision, a film unit that supports non-fiction filmmaking and journalistic projects, and was an initial supporter of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting journalists and whistleblowers.

In 2014, Poitras was honored with the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence by Harvard's Nieman Foundation, recognizing her commitment to independent journalism.

On November 30, 2020, Poitras was terminated by First Look Media, the parent company of The Intercept. This dismissal was allegedly related to her public criticism of The Intercept's handling of the Reality Winner controversy, where a former intelligence contractor was prosecuted for leaking classified documents.

6.1. Awards and honors

Poitras has received extensive recognition for her impactful work:

• 2008: Creative Capital Award in Moving Image
• 2010: True Vision Award, True/False Film Festival, Columbia, MO
• 2010: Anonymous Was A Woman Award
• 2012: MacArthur Fellowship
• 2013: Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award (with three other people)
• 2013: George Polk Award for National Security Reporting (with Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill)
• 2014: Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize (with Edward Snowden)
• 2014: Pulitzer Prize for Public Service (awarded to The Washington Post and The Guardian for the NSA reporting on which she worked, along with Barton Gellman, Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill)
• 2014: Gerald Loeb Award for Large Newspapers (awarded to The Washington Post for five stories on the NSA)
• 2015: Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (for Citizenfour)
• 2015: German Film Award for Best Documentary Film (for Citizenfour)
• 2022: Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival (for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed)
• 2024: Peabody Award (for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed)

Other awards for Citizenfour include the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Non-Fiction Film, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film, the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film, and the British Academy Film Award for Best Documentary, all in 2014. It also received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary Film Production in 2014. Her film Flag Wars also won a Peabody Award and was nominated for a 2004 Emmy Award.

6.2. Critical reception and controversies

Poitras's films have generally been met with critical acclaim for their journalistic rigor, bold subject matter, and distinctive cinematic style. Citizenfour, in particular, was widely praised not only for its powerful narrative but also for its profound impact on public understanding of surveillance. Film executive Harvey Weinstein notably stated that the documentary changed his opinion of Edward Snowden, calling it "one of the best movies, period."

However, her work has also generated controversy, most notably with her 2016 film Risk, which focused on Julian Assange. The film underwent significant re-editing after its initial premiere, with Poitras stating she had a change of heart about Assange after discovering more about his personal conduct, including what she described as his "troubling relationship with women." The re-edited version included footage where Assange made controversial statements, such as alleging that sexual assault accusations against him were part of a "radical feminist conspiracy." This drew criticism from WikiLeaks' lawyers, who argued in a public opinion piece that the film was a "betrayal" and served to undermine WikiLeaks at a sensitive time. They questioned Poitras's motivations for the changes and accused the film of misrepresenting Assange. These controversies highlight the challenging ethical considerations involved in documentary filmmaking, especially when dealing with complex, real-world figures and sensitive topics.

6.3. Legacy and impact

Laura Poitras's influence extends far beyond the realm of filmmaking. She has significantly shaped public discourse on issues of surveillance, civil liberties, and governmental transparency, largely due to her willingness to tackle highly sensitive subjects and her direct engagement with whistleblowers. Her films, particularly Citizenfour, have not only garnered international attention but have also served as powerful tools for public education, making complex national security issues accessible to a broader audience.

She has set a high bar for investigative journalism in the digital age, demonstrating the critical role of independent media in holding powerful institutions accountable. Her personal experiences with government surveillance have also brought attention to the challenges faced by journalists reporting on national security. Furthermore, through initiatives like Field of Vision and her support for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Poitras has actively contributed to fostering environments that support journalistic independence and protect those who expose wrongdoing. Her work inspires subsequent generations of documentary filmmakers, journalists, and activists to pursue truth and challenge authority, solidifying her legacy as a courageous and impactful voice in contemporary media.