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