The first film to be screened at the anniversary edition of WATCH DOCS will be the latest work by Laura Poitras, co-directed with Mark Obenhaus, which had its world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The documentary, created by one of the most important figures in contemporary nonfiction cinema, portrays the legendary American investigative journalist who has devoted his life to uncovering the most closely guarded secrets of our time. Cover-Up, like Poitras’s earlier works, raises questions about the boundaries of state control over society and individual freedom.

“The latest film by Laura Poitras — a legend of engaged documentary filmmaking and Oscar winner for Citizenfour — once again takes us into the world of secret services, guilt, punishment, and the people who know the price of truth. We are thrilled that her outstanding documentary, previously shown only at festivals in Venice, Toronto, and Amsterdam, will have its Polish premiere during the opening of the anniversary edition of WATCH DOCS,” says Konrad Wirkowski, the festival’s program director.

It took Poitras twenty years to persuade the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to reveal his secrets on camera. Hersh, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his extensive investigation of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, continues — even in his nineties — to pursue abuses of power with undiminished determination, now focusing on exposing war crimes in Gaza. Skillfully edited from fascinating archival footage, the documentary situates the iconic reporter’s groundbreaking investigations in their broader social and political contexts: the brutality of the American army in Vietnam and Iraq, the Watergate scandal, and the Pinochet coup. “You cannot keep turning your eyes away from violence,” Hersh insists, “especially when living in a culture so saturated with it.”