Director Susanna Fogel expected to attend
This darkly comedic biopic is based on the true coming-of-age story of Reality Winner (played by Emilia Jones), a brilliant, idealistic young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the Air Force. Reality is a sarcastic, gun-owning, vegan yogi and CrossFit fanatic who initially becomes fluent in Pashto to work as an interpreter. To support her ailing father, she reluctantly accepts a position as an NSA contractor. Reality made international headlines in 2017 when she was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking a government document exposing Russia’s hacking of the 2016 US presidential election. But this fresh, heartfelt production full of gallows humor is not a traditional whistleblower docudrama.
Winner captures the devastating impact of the investigation on Reality’s mental health and her family, played by a star-studded cast of Zach Galifianakis, Kathryn Newton, and Connie Britton. Winner poses an essential moral dilemma: How far should someone go to bring the truth to light? —Thaïs Miller
SUSANNA FOGEL most recently directed the Emmy-nominated Disney+ limited series A SMALL LIGHT, which won the 2023 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series, the feature film WINNER, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be released by Vertical Pictures in 2024, and a feature adaptation of the New Yorker story CAT PERSON, which premiered at Sundance in 2023 and was released by StudioCanal. Previous credits include cowriting BOOKSMART (2019) cowriting/directing Lionsgate's THE SPY WHO DUMPED ME (2018) and directing the pilot episodes of the HBO Max series THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT and Amazon's hit series THE WILDS.
$345 Members / $395 General Public
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