sunday, june 4, 9 pm: sex, lies and wikileaks

[pirate cinema berlin]

In which Laura Poitras, for reasons that will become painfully obvious in her 
film, fails to ask the most obvious question: How can you operate an 
organization like Wikileaks, and at the same time insist that the world still 
owes you a love life? How can you simultaneously take on the FBI, the CIA, the 
NSA and the State Department, but still feel entitled to sexual encounters with 
pretty much everyone who happens to cross your path? How can you be at the 
center of a global information warfare operation that traffics some of the most 
sensitive intelligence on the planet, yet think that it's a good idea to leave 
a long trail of disgruntled lovers? What point is there in maintaining secure 
communication channels if you keep violating OpSec 101: Don't fuck around.

Even though Laura Poitras doesn't ask any of these questions, she cannot help 
but answer them. And even though there is no sex in her film, other than in 
form of veiled and sometimes not-so-veiled references that keep recurring both 
on and off the screen, her portrait is so intimate that it hurts to watch it, 
and it inevitably hurts everyone involved, be it in front of or behind the 
camera. Had she hired actors to play Julian, Jake or Sarah, the most personal 
scenes would appear laughably implausible; but the fact that they're all 
happily playing themselves makes the entire affair look truly surreal. While 
the whole world is watching from afar, witnessing heroic acts of digital 
disobedience committed by a clandestine group of hackers, Poitras' close-ups 
show something completely different. There are no adults in the room, just a 
bunch of adolescents, and they're all very busy shooting a documentary.

Contrary to certain claims that have been made since its release, "Risk" is not 
an act of personal betrayal. It's a self-inflicted wound, and beyond the 
willingness of the protagonists, including the filmmaker, to ditch their 
original mission, and instead focus on what they seem to mistake for the 
glorious private life of global celebrities, there is nothing scandalous about 
it. This film doesn't leak anything of value, but it keeps dripping, and for 
anyone who wants to get a better idea of when and how Wikileaks lost its sense
of direction, this is, despite its best intentions, a rather important document.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                                                          sunday
                                                                          june 4
                                                                            9 pm

                                                                            risk
                                                                   laura poitras
                                                                    2017, 92 min

                                                            pirate cinema berlin
                                                                u kottbusser tor
                                                           e-mail for directions

                                    https://piratecinema.org/trailers/s06e03.mp4

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         ()
         ><
pirate cinema berlin
www.piratecinema.org