Laura Poitras

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Laura Poitras (2014)

Laura Poitras (born February 2, 1964 in Boston ) is an American documentary film director and producer . She has published several award-winning works and is a MacArthur Fellow .

Poitras is one of the initiators of the Freedom of the Press Foundation ; besides Glenn Greenwald, she is the first person who had access to the documents of the global surveillance and espionage affair made available by whistleblower Edward Snowden . From February 2014 to September 2016 she worked for the medium The Intercept , founded by Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill together with her . Since September 2016, she has been one of the leading producers of the documentary film platform Field of Vision, another project of the non-profit media company First Look Media .

Her film Citizenfour , a documentary about the American whistleblower Edward Snowden, for which she wrote and directed the screenplay and directed , won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary .

Life

After attending Sudbury Valley School and graduating from high school , Poitras studied at the San Francisco Art Institute , where she attended courses with experimental filmmaker Ernie Gehr . In 1992, she moved to New York and continued her studies at The New School , which she completed in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in "Public Engagement" (for example: public participation ).

Since the release of My Country, My Country - a documentary about Iraq under US occupation - in 2006, Poitras has been classified as a terrorist suspect by the Department of Homeland Security . For them, air travel inevitably goes hand in hand with the measures of the Secondary Security Screening Selection , as it is on the watch list of the US State Department. Based on this entry and the corresponding repression , Glenn Greenwald wrote about her controversial films and the resulting fate in 2012.

In January 2013 Poitras was contacted anonymously and received - after she provided her PGP public key - instructions to further protect herself against hacks (see Bruteforce ):

"Assume that your adverse is capable of a trillion guesses per second"

"For example: Assume that your opponent can make a trillion attempts per second "

- Edward Snowden

As a result of this mail, Snowden, Greenwald, and Poitras arranged a meeting in Kowloon . Since the top secret files were handed over, she has been using different computers for editing, communicating and reading the secret items. The device for reading is completely without any connection to any communication system .

While Greenwald chose the publication via The Guardian newspaper , Poitras is working on filming the surveillance affair.

On February 10, 2014, she published on The Intercept :

“A primary function of The Intercept is to insist upon and defend our press freedoms from those who wish to infringe them. We are determined to move forward with what we believe is essential reporting in the public interest and with a commitment to the ideal that a truly free and independent press is a vital component of any healthy democratic society. We believe the prime value of journalism is that it imposes transparency, and thus accountability, on those who wield the greatest governmental and corporate power. Our journalists will be not only permitted, but encouraged, to pursue stories without regard to whom they might alienate. "

“A primary function of The Intercept is to insist on our freedom of the press and to defend it against those who want to violate them. We are determined to move forward with what we believe to be essential journalistic work in the public interest . Our devotion is to the ideal of the truly free and independent press as a vital component of any healthy democratic society . We believe that transparency is the essential value of journalism, and with it the responsibility of those who have the greatest political and corporate power. Our journalists not only have permission, but are encouraged to follow stories regardless of who they might offend. "

- Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill

Regarding her time with Snowden in Hong Kong, she said:

“In retrospect, a lot of people think, Oh, the Snowden story is a great story that any journalist would want to get ahold of, but it didn't feel that way then. I was seriously scared. "

“Looking back, a lot of people think, 'Oh, the Snowden story is a great story any journalist would love to get into,' but it didn't feel like that. I was seriously scared . "

- January 2016

Poitras lived in Berlin but returned to New York City in 2016 .

Create

Laura Poitras addresses social or political grievances in her films. After discussing gentrification in Flag Wars , she began studying the facets and effects of the war on terror since My Country, My Country . My Country, My Country was the beginning of a trilogy, the second part of which was published under the title The Oath . The third and final part was started under the working title The Program . The New York Times wrote in August 2013 that the film explores counter-terrorism issues and the role of whistleblowers in 21st century society in the face of intelligence surveillance . Film history will show parallels to Snowden's career. The documentary was released in 2014 under the title Citizenfour .

For the Whitney Museum of American Art , she created her first art exhibition “Astro Noise” in January 2016, which will address the global surveillance and espionage affairs , the war on terror and targeted killings , among other things . The name is based on the name of the encrypted container file with which Edward Snowden handed the NSA documents to Poitras, and originally refers to the residual thermal radiation of the Big Bang . In the exhibition she visualizes the traces of the reconnaissance technology, satellite signals and drone overflights. It also shows people; Victims of terrorist violence and people who are treated as terrorists by state authorities. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on February 7, 2016, she was asked about the exhibition and her current living conditions by Johanna Adorján .

Peter Richter reported on the exhibition from New York for the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “Poitras was obviously looking for channels to convey its material and message as effectively as possible, and he found them in the well-known arsenals of art and exhibition architecture . It wasn't so much about working on these channels. And that's understandable. "

Filmography

  • 1995: Exact Fantasy
  • 1998: Free Tibet (production, editing; director: Sarah Pirozek)
  • 2003: Flag Wars
  • 2006: My Country, My Country
  • 2010: The Oath
  • 2011: The Law in These Parts (Production; Director: Ra'anan Alexandrovicz)
  • 2011: O'Say Can You See (video installation)
  • 2012: The Program
  • 2014: Citizenfour
  • 2016: Risk , documentary about Julian Assange (In the film Assange portrays himself as a victim of a radical feminist conspiracy. His argument against the credibility of one of his accusers was that she founded Gothenburg's largest lesbian nightclub.)

Awards

person

Movies

Web links

Commons : Laura Poitras  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Poitras in whitney.org ( Memento from December 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Field of Vision
  3. ↑ US filmmaker repeatedly detained at border , Salon.com . Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  4. ↑ Peter Maass: How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets . The New York Times. August 13, 2013. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved on August 23, 2013.
  5. ↑ Welcome to The Intercept , firstlook.org, February 10, 2014 . Retrieved February 10, 2014.
  6. ^ Sara Corbett: Oscar-Winning Documentarian Laura Poitras Is Emerging — Carefully — Into the Spotlight , Vogue website, January 27, 2016. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  7. ↑ FAZ, October 25, 2014, p. 9.
  8. ^ The Program , The New York Times . Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  9. ^ Laura Poitras: Astro Noise Feb 5 – May 1, 2016 , Whitney Museum of American Art - website. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  10. ^ Whistleblower in the museum. In: FAS of February 7, 2016, pages 45/46.
  11. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Laura Poitras' drone war , February 4, 2016.
  12. ↑ The camera becomes a whistleblower in FAZ of July 11, 2013, page 33
  13. ^ Laura Poitras Film about Snowden & Surveillance Added to 52nd NYFF Film Society of Lincoln Center , Retrieved September 18, 2014
  14. ↑ Steven Zeitchik: With Laura Poitras' re-cut 'Risk,' a director controversially changes her mind about Julian Assange (en-US) . In: Los Angeles Times , May 6, 2017. Retrieved May 9, 2017. 
  15. ↑ Brent Lang: 'Risk' Director Laura Poitras on Her Explosive Julian Assange Documentary (en-US) . In: Variety , May 3, 2017. Retrieved May 9, 2017. 
  16. ↑ a b Elias Groll: Julian Assange Is Not Ready for His Close Up . In: Foreign Policy . May 5, 2017. Retrieved May 9, 2017.
  17. ^ The Ridenhour Prizes: Fostering the spirit of courage and truth ( English ) In: The Ridenhour Prizes . April 8, 2014. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved on April 8, 2014.
  18. ^ Henri Nannen Prize: The 2014 Henri Nannen Prize for services to freedom of the press goes to journalist Laura Poitras , accessed on May 10, 2014
  19. ^ Marion Dönhoff Prize for US documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras
  20. ^ Academy Awards 2015 , accessed January 15, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Poitras, Laura
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American documentary director and producer
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd February 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston