Laura Poitras

At The Oath's center is Abu Jandal, former bodyguard to Osama bin Laden and now a cab driver in Yemen. As his story unfolds through wonderfully intimate camera work, our connection to Jandal becomes deeply personal — watching him wake up his son for morning prayers reveals a softer side of the man, and scenes of him speaking with a group of Yemeni youths give a firsthand look at the gentle, logical inculcation that makes radical Islam attractive to its adherents. But Jandal also carries a show more great burden: his belief that his brother-in-law rots in Guantánamo in his place. Poitras has crafted a narrative that is simultaneously intimate and global, and her camera goes where others fear to tread. This is a masterwork of nonfiction filmmaking and a movie that will provoke discussion for years to come.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1522857/ show less

In the first film of an ongoing trilogy, this year's True Vision Award winner explores some epic themes: betrayal, civil war and global imbalances of power. Poitras spent eight months in Baghdad, following a Sunni doctor in the run-up to Iraq's compromised 2005 national elections. As an unembedded filmmaker, Poitras provides the viewer visceral evidence of a country under enormous stress and grief, of days filled with small but constant humiliations, mind-boggling tragedies, and unescapable show more fear and death. "The image can hold this pain," she told one interviewer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810983/ show less