Laura Poitras

Posted January 16, 2015

New York, NY


Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras attended the San Francisco Art Institute and The New School for Social Research. The film Flag Wars (2003), about the gentrification of a Columbus, OH, neighborhood, which she co-directed, was nominated for an Emmy and won a Peabody Award. For the Emmy, Independent Spirit, and Academy Award-nominated My Country, My Country (2006), the first of a film trilogy about post-9/11 America, Poitras spent eight months in Baghdad, following an Iraqi doctor in the city. Also a winner of several awards, The Oath (2010) was filmed in Yemen, where Poitras worked for two years. It recounts the stories of Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard and his brother-in-law, a Guantanamo prisoner accused of war crimes.

 The Oath, 2010; photo credit Khalid Al Mahdi

The Oath, 2010; photo credit Khalid Al Mahdi