Laura PoitrasEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

“At first, I was terrified”. These are not words you expect to hear very often from Laura Poitras, one of the world’s most fearless and acclaimed documentary filmmakers. Afterall, this is the filmmaker who took on the U.S. intelligence community with her Academy Award-winning film “Citizenfour” about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. But shortly into our “Top Docs” interview about her trenchant and luminous new documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”, Laura began to use words like “nervous”, “intimidating”, and “terrified”. Rather than experiencing a potentially dangerous physical situation or government surveillance operation, Laura, instead, found herself confronting something even more formidable, the groundbreaking visual artist Nan Goldin. Not wanting to come up short in her portrait of someone that Laura describes as a legend, hero and inspiration, Laura was driven to create a documentary that would do justice to Nan, her artwork and her activism. Laura joined Ken on “Top Docs” to talk about how she and Nan came together to collaborate on the film and form a strong creative partnership. Given Nan’s frequent use of live slideshows to present her most well-known work, how did Laura and Nan figure out the best way to feature Nan’s art in the film? Why and how did Nan and the activist group that she founded in response to the opioid crisis train their sights on the Sackler family, whose company created OxyContin? And in what ways do big themes like destigmatization, resistance and legacy feature prominently in the film? Join us for this lively conversation… and don’t be afraid. Hidden Gems: “ Crossroads ” “ Perfect Film ” Follow on Twitter: @topdocspod “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” will be released by NEON in theaters on November 23 in New York City and December 2 in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A national release will follow. The film will premiere on HBO and HBO Max at a date to be announced The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix .

Taking its title from a poem by Bertolt Brecht, this talk explores the role of critique and criticism in the arts and beyond. Does critique represent a negative attitude to the world, or is it in fact an optimistic practice, one that allows us to imagine and work toward alternative and better realities? (Brecht, again: “Criticizing the course of a river means improving it, correcting it.”) Is criticism always a response to art, or can it be a form of art-making in itself? Can one effectively critique an institution or system while also living within it? Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute delved into these questions with a roundtable of directors—Laura Poitras (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed), Elvis Mitchell (Is That Black Enough for You?!?), and Tiffany Sia (What Rules the Invisible)—whose films from the NYFF60 lineup are as stunning as works of art as they are incisive as critiques—whether of history, society, or art itself.

How do you earn the trust of a source like, say, Edward Snowden? Or the former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden? On this bonus episode of the podcast we’ll hear from someone who did just that. Earlier this year documentarian Laura Poitras spoke with Toronto Star reporter Robert Cribb at the 2015 IRE Conference. In the three clips you’re about to hear, Poitras discusses each of her films: "My Country, My Country," "The Oath" and "Citizenfour." She’ll talk about getting access, capturing candid moments and more. Episode notes: http://bit.ly/1O6SE5u

In her filmmaking, the director Laura Poitras—my guest on this edition of Radio Motherboard—likes to document reality as it happens, those moments of uncertainty that often don’t appear on film. “There’s something about how we look at the past which has a kind of finality and closure to it, where life doesn’t usually happen that way,” she told me. […] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.