International Competition

Laura Poitras is a filmmaker and journalist. Citizenfour, the third instalment of her post-9/11 trilogy, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Part one of the trilogy, My Country, My Country, about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, was nominated for an Academy Award. Part two, The Oath, focused on Guantanamo and the "war on terror", and was nominated for two Emmy awards. In 2006, the U.S. government placed her on a secret terrorist watchlist and for six years she was detained and interrogated at the U.S. border each time she travelled internationally.  In 2014, in the aftermath of the NSA/Snowden revelations, high-level CIA officials lobbied to designate Poitras as an "information broker" and "agent of a foreign power" to pave the way for her prosecution. The effort was not carried out. She is a co-founder of The Intercept, First Look Media, and Field of Vision where she funded and executive produced over 100 documentaries, including five Academy Award nominated films.