EXCLUSIVE: Actress Sydney Sweeney earned praise for her performance as whistleblower Reality Winner in the recent fact-driven HBO drama Reality. But in the new documentary Reality Winner, audiences will get to hear from the woman herself who was hit with the longest prison sentence ever handed down for leaking a secret U.S. intelligence document.
Sonia Kennebeck (National Bird) directed the Codebreaker Films production, which will premiere at IFC Center in New York on October 11 and at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles on October 18. Grasshopper Films will release Reality Winner on VOD on October 31 (Separately, Winner will participate in a Q&A at a special screening at Alamo Drafthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas on Saturday, Oct. 7). The documentary offers a first-hand account of a case that gained national attention after Winner was arrested for exposing a classified assessment of Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“Filmed over five years, this is the only documentary about the young NSA whistleblower Reality Winner, who exposed Russian interference in U.S. elections and went to jail for it,” notes a synopsis about the film. “With exclusive access to Reality Winner and the media outlet involved in her arrest, this film also reveals FBI evidence never before released.”
We have your first look at the film in the trailer above.
Director Sonia Kennebeck
Dominik Bindl/Getty Images
“I first read about Reality’s arrest shortly after it was announced in June 2017,” Kennebeck said in a statement provided to Deadline. “I was touring with my film National Bird that follows three drone whistleblowers, one of whom was raided by the FBI, so Reality’s story was immediately deeply personal to me. I could imagine the fear and horror she must have felt during the interrogation and when the agents went through her most private messages and diary entries. Espionage Act investigations are rare and serious – the disclosure of a single classified document can lead to a decade in prison, no matter the intent – and it troubled me to know what Reality was facing.”
Kennebeck continued, “We wanted to make this film investigative, truthful, and cinematic, but most importantly Reality Winner is a deeply human story about one woman who tried to do the right thing for the American public by exposing foreign election interference. Reality was harshly punished for her decision, but there is a record of it and I hope people from across the political spectrum will watch the film to see what happened.”
In 2018 Winner was sentenced to over five years in prison for violating the Espionage Act. She was released, with time off for good behavior, in 2021.
Reality Winner
Courtesy of E.J. Enriquez
“In the first interview after her release, Reality gives our film team unprecedented insight into her motivation for sharing the document and her experiences during the interrogation and harsh prosecution,” the documentary synopsis says. “Combined with the original audio recording of Reality’s FBI interrogation, which is exclusive to our film, as well as verité footage from the past five years, this character-driven documentary shines light on the personal sacrifice one young woman made in order to inform the public about a threat to American democracy.”
Filmmaking legend Wim Wenders serves as an executive producer on the film. Abigail Disney, Bryn Mooser, and Tony Hsieh serve as co-EPs. Reality Winner is directed and produced by Sonia Kennebeck and produced by Ines Hofmann Kanna.
Watch the trailer above.
