- Laura Poitras was born on February 2, 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She is a producer and director, known for Citizenfour (2014), The Oath (2010) and My Country, My Country (2006).
- Portrayed by Melissa Leo in Snowden (2016).
- Laura Poitras had a romantic relationship with computer security researcher, activist, and journalist Jacob Appelbaum, after the filming phase was over for her documentary film project about WikiLeaks which resulted in the feature Risk (2016). She often mentions Appelbaum in her book "Astro Noise" using the affectionate form 'Jake'. The opening photo in "Astro Noise" shows Poitras stretched out on a daybed in the sunlight and is credited to Appelbaum.
- Lives in Berlin, Germany.
- One of 115 invitees to join AMPAS in 2007.
- [on drama] The films that really resonate for me capture a human drama as it unfolds. Someone once asked me what drama was. Drama is this [she picks up a plastic honey container and moves it a few inches away to another spot on the table]. It's movement. It's not people talking about what they did but it is what they do and the choices they make. I'm bringing these ideas about drama, which are old ones, into these kinds of contemporary forums and finding those stories. Those principles of documentary filmmaking have been around a long time - what makes a good story? It's finding those compelling characters that are confronting some sort of conflict.[2008]
- [on process] I'm someone who has a profound respect for process. Trusting process probably speaks to my experience as a cook, as well as to my experience as a filmmaker. Going into a war zone you have to be present, in the moment. I think if you approach any of these things [awards] as a goal, desiring the end product before you've even begun the process, you're fucked. Particularly in a situation like Iraq, you have to be there for the right reasons. Your life is on the line and so are the lives of the people around you. The right reason is not to make a successful film; the right reason is that you're trying to express something and trying to honor those people who are trusting you with their lives. It's a real reality check. Of course, I also want people to see my films; I want them to be successful. But when everyone you know has got their lives on the line, you better be doing things straight. Your intentions have to be clean.[2008]
- [on her biography] I had come out of this very experimental background and I really felt like I would spend my career making small, essay-type films. I'm a pretty shy person; it's not that comfortable for me to enter into people's lives and it never occurred to me that I could do this kind of documentary where you're really following someone's journey very closely. I learned the magic of that during this film [ My Country, My Country (2006)]. Now, filming people is actually the thing that I live for. There is a kind of magic that someone like Albert Maysles talks about where there's just this incredible connection with your subjects and something profound is happening, a palpable human drama unfolding. That feeling is the compass for everything I do now. And when I get that feeling of knowing that that kind of moment is happening - and it can be something as simple as someone making tea or as frightening as a judge coming to inspect a house and maybe getting evicted - there's a definite pulse and you feel it. And that was something I discovered, really stumbled into, making Flag Wars (2003). But it's absolutely about that connection with people and capturing those moments on camera that guides my work, quite different from composing something beautiful in a more detached way. That was a transformative lesson for me.[2008]
- [on doing 'cinéma vérité'-style documentary] All those moments consist of knowing at that moment that you're in the right place at the right time, that certain magic that happens, particularly in verite filmmaking, where you recognize that whatever is happening is extraordinary. You just hold your breath and try to capture it. Those moments really teach you about story, human drama. The 'issue' you're trying to highlight, in a weird way, becomes irrelevant. When you're making present-tense 'cinéma verité' films, the action unfolding as it happens, it becomes all about the choices people make in those circumstances, at those crisis moments, and again capturing that human drama right there.[2008]
- [on her educational background] I have an art background, actually. At the 'San Francisco Art Institute', I studied more experimental films with people like Ernie Gehr and George Kuchar, both teaching there at the time. I didn't go there to become a filmmaker; I was actually working as a chef. I did French food for about 10 years, working at very, very fancy places in San Francisco. And the restaurant where I was working at the time went union so my work day went from 14 hours a day to just eight. I had all this free time and I had just moved to San Francisco [from Boston] and didn't know anyone. I registered for this class at the 'San Francisco Art Institute' to learn about Super 8 filmmaking - this was in the late '80s. And my first teacher was Ernie Gehr who is an avant-garde legend, in terms of his structuralist approach to film. The class was kind of mind-blowing for me. Using that camera was a way for me to interpret this new landscape for myself. I picked up this camera and sort of fell in love with it. So when I started shooting and making films, it was using film, Bolex or Super 8. And everything I was watching was made by artist/filmmakers. It wasn't about delegation of craft; you were the artist and you made your own film - as the cinematographer, the director, the producer, the way you cut it, etc., but, totally non-commercial. The avant-garde or experimental film community is an interesting one because they never try to capitalize on their work; they aren't making anything that could be bought as an object. So people like Gehr or Stan Brakhage or Abigail Child or Peggy Ahwesh were really piecing together things that would never make them art stars even though they were doing really amazing work and continue to do amazing work now. After taking several courses here and there, I basically gave up cooking and started working for a nonprofit media organization. And then I came to New York for graduate school in social political theory at the 'New School', so my technical background was filled out by all this social and political theory. I started working as an assistant editor on the Avid system. The transition to doing long-form documentary was doing Flag Wars (2003), which I made in collaboration with Linda Goode Bryant. Both of us had done more experimental work and we had no idea what we were getting into, how much time it would take, which ended up being four years. When we started, the three-chip digital cameras had come on the market and as a filmmaker, someone who shot film and loved the kinds of images that emerged from that process, it was great to discover that the images from these cameras were also beautiful and you could fall in love with these pictures - you can frame an image and you can love it. My motivation was always about capturing something visually, and this aesthetic and the technology convened at the right moment for me - that and cutting non-linearly without it costing a fortune, the new software making it possible to work on a home computer.[2008]
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