Filmmaker Laura Poitras, who spotlighted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in her Oscar-winning 2014 documentary, Citizenfour, offers an equally intimate portrait of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in her upcoming Showtime doc Risk. The projects gripping debut trailer follows the controversial publisher through his surreal daily life from altering his physical appearance to casually discussing the possibility of a presidential assassination.
This is not the film I thought I was making, Poitras confesses in voiceover. I thought I could ignore the contradictions. I thought they were not part of the story. I was wrong. Theyre becoming the story.
Elsewhere, the clip grows more sinister as the director ponders the immense personal danger of chronicling her subject: When I got home, my apartment door was open. Did I forget to close it, or [is the government] sending me a message?
In a statement about the project, Showtime calls Risk a first-person geopolitical thriller told from the perspective of a filmmaker immersed in the worlds of state surveillance and the cypherpunk movement. The documentary, executive produced by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, is expected to premiere this summer.