In August 2018, U.S. Air Force veteran and former NSA translator Reality Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for leaking an NSA intelligence report regarding Russia’s involvement in the 2016 United States presidential elections, in the form of hacking and accessing voter registration rolls. It was the longest sentence ever received for someone convicted of releasing private government information to the public.
Her story is a markedly significant one, to say the least, and filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck has every intention on making sure that everyone will know it.
Indeed, Kennebeck has partnered with Codebreaker Films to bring us Reality Winner, the upcoming documentary on the high-profile whistleblower, complete with firsthand accounts from Winner herself, commentary from The Intercept (the outlet that Winner sent the documents to), and never-before-seen footage of her interrogation by the FBI.
It’s the latest in a long line of media based on Winner’s story, which started with the 2019 Tina Satter play Is This a Room, the script for which was based on the transcript from the FBI’s interview with Winner. It will also be Kennebeck’s second documentary on the subject following 2021’s United States vs. Reality Winner and comes on the heels of the Sydney Sweeney-led crime drama Reality, which released to Max in May this year.
Her story prompted increased discourse around the Espionage Act and the dangers it can directly and indirectly pose to democracy, Indeed, if revealing that Russia was taking direct action to influence the United States’ most important election (to say nothing of the fact that they ultimately got the result they wanted) somehow turns you into an enemy of the state, then perhaps said state is worth being the enemy of—if your goal is to be remembered fondly in history books a century from now.
Reality Winner will release to theaters on October 11, with a video-on-demand release scheduled for October 31.
(featured image: Codebreaker Films)
