''United States vs. Reality Winner'' is a 2021 American documentary film, directed and produced by Sonia Kennebeck.

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Docum ...

serves as an executive producer. It follows

Reality Winner Reality Leigh Winner (born December 4, 1991) is an American former enlisted US Air Force member and NSA translator. In 2018, she was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for unauthorized release of government information to the media a ...

, who leaked a top secret document about

Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. Acc ...

to the media. The film had its world premiere at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

on March 17, 2021.

Synopsis

The film follows

, who leaked a document about

to the media. Winner, Billie Winner-Davis, Brittany Winner, Gary Davis,

Betsy Reed Betsy Reed (born 1968) is an American journalist and editor. From January 2015, she was the editor-in-chief of ''The Intercept''. In July 2022, she was named the editor-in-chief of ''Guardian US'', succeeding John Mulholland, and will assume her ...

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

John Kiriakou John Chris Kiriakou (born August 9, 1964) is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of ''Political Misfits'' on Sputnik Radio. He was formerly an analyst and ...

, and Thomas Drake appear in the film, while

Natalia Dyer Natalia Danielle Dyer (born January 13, 1995) is an American actress. She is known for starring as Nancy Wheeler in the Netflix science fiction horror series ''Stranger Things'' (2016–present), in addition to her starring role in the comedy-dr ...

narrates letters and poems by Winner.

Release

The film had its world premiere at

on March 17, 2021. It will also screen at CPH:DOX in April 2021.

Reception

''United States vs. Reality Winner'' received positive reviews from film critics. It holds a 100% approval rating on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 12 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

of 7.00/10.

References

External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, united_states_vs_reality_winner 2021 films 2021 documentary films American documentary films Biographical documentary films Documentary films about elections in the United States Films about whistleblowing 2020s English-language films 2020s American films