(Newswire.net — May 23, 2016) — Cannes, France – A documentary about the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, received a welcoming reception at the Cannes Film Festival. Loved by critics, the film ‘Risk’ offers an inside look at the controversial Wikileaks founder from the publication of the US diplomatic cables and the fallout in 2010-2011 to his present state, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Director Laura Poitras started working on the documentary on Assange before she made the Academy Award winning Citizenfour.
Poitras often put herself in danger telling stories that the US government would prefer not to be shared worldwide. According to her, she was put on the US government terrorist watch list back in 2006, when she made ‘My Country, My Country’, a documentary set in Iraq under the US forces’ occupation, she told Russia Today News.
In 2010, Poitras made waves once again on US Policy through her documentary ‘The Oath.’ Filmed in Yemen and Guantánamo Bay, The Oath is a story revolving around Osama Bin Laden’s former bodyguard, and a Gitmo detainee, exposing the real impact of the US War on Terror.
In her latest documentary, ‘Risk’, Poitras revealed how a small company, Wikileaks, could shake the Earth due to the courage of its founder, Julian Assange. The documentary features controversial singer Lady Gaga who interviewed Assange.
Commenting on reports alleging Poitras and Assange stopped getting on well, she critiqued the mainstream media and questioned the source of the information.
“When I first started doing the reporting on Edward Snowden’s documents, one of the first things that the mainstream media did was a comparison [with WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning],” she said.
“This comparison is a move by the mainstream media to try and separate people. What Snowden did came after Chelsea Manning. It’s not about comparing the two, it’s about looking at what they’re actually revealing,” she said.
After the documentary ‘Risk’ was screened, American independent journalist, WikiLeaks activist and technical expert Jacob Appelbaum described Julian as a “political prisoner who has been demonized in the press,” receiving great applause from the Cannes audience.