Biography
Laura Poitras is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. Born in Boston in 1964, she studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and The New School in New York before beginning her career in experimental film and later moving into long-form documentary.
She is best known for Citizenfour (2014), which she wrote, directed and produced. The film documents Edward Snowden's disclosures about NSA surveillance programmes and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It forms the final part of a trilogy that also includes My Country, My Country (2006) and The Oath (2010).
Poitras has received further recognition for later work including All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022). She is a MacArthur Fellow and has contributed to visual journalism initiatives such as Field of Vision.
