American translator Reality Winner is probably better known in Europe than the U.S., thanks in part to Tina Satter’s extraordinary arthouse film Reality (2023), which dramatized the 25-year-old Texas translator’s arrest in 2017 using the verbatim transcripts of her interactions with the FBI.
Winner, a funny and surprisingly powerful biopic directed and cowritten by Susanna Fogel, will go quite a long way towards raising her profile back home.
By no means as controversial as previous whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange — all she did really was photocopy a piece of paper and send it to a fringe-left website — Reality Winner somehow became a punching bag for the American government, and the disproportionate punishment for her crime could give this film traction in an election year that is being fought more than ever before on a battlefield where principles are the first casualty.
You wouldn...
Winner, a funny and surprisingly powerful biopic directed and cowritten by Susanna Fogel, will go quite a long way towards raising her profile back home.
By no means as controversial as previous whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange — all she did really was photocopy a piece of paper and send it to a fringe-left website — Reality Winner somehow became a punching bag for the American government, and the disproportionate punishment for her crime could give this film traction in an election year that is being fought more than ever before on a battlefield where principles are the first casualty.
You wouldn...
- 1/21/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
Reality Winner has been out of prison since June 2021, but she’s still under lockdown. The whistleblower’s travel is confined to the Southern District of Texas and she must abide by a 10 p.m. curfew. If all goes according to plan — and it really, really hasn’t for most of her hellish ordeal — her probation will be lifted Nov. 24. And right now, she’s cautiously optimistic. The 31-year-old is hard at work on her memoir, was recently the subject of the critically acclaimed HBO movie Reality with actress Sydney Sweeney playing her,...
- 10/31/2023
- by Marlow Stern
- Rollingstone.com
"I really thought that the whole world can be changed for the better with one deed..." Codebreaker Films has revealed an official trailer for a documentary film titled Reality Winner, which is indeed about the US whistleblower named Reality Winner, directed by Sonia Kennebeck. This originally premiered under the title United States vs. Reality Winner, playing at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and Cph:dox and Doc NYC that year. It has taken two years for them to finally secure a release in select US theaters starting this October. "Would you risk your freedom to protect democracy?" The incredible true story of Reality Winner in her own words. 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. With exclusive access to Reality Winner and the media outlet involved in her arrest.
- 9/22/2023
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
It is almost parodically apt that the first whistle-blower of the Trump era should be named Reality Winner. But Reality genuinely is the birth name of the government contractor and translator who reached her breaking point with the firing of James Comey and leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections to the news website The Intercept which would later be read into evidence on the Senate floor.
Writer/director Tina Satter has recreated the interrogation of Reality in a tightly coiled and meticulously paced thriller; adapted from her 2019 stage play and lifted directly from the FBI’s own transcript. Playing out in Winner’s house and garden, in bright daylight, the film’s deceptively plodding start belies its sinister undertow meaning the audience is already trapped in the serpentine loops of its narrative before we understand that the tension is crushing us.
Reality (Sydney Sweeney) returns...
Writer/director Tina Satter has recreated the interrogation of Reality in a tightly coiled and meticulously paced thriller; adapted from her 2019 stage play and lifted directly from the FBI’s own transcript. Playing out in Winner’s house and garden, in bright daylight, the film’s deceptively plodding start belies its sinister undertow meaning the audience is already trapped in the serpentine loops of its narrative before we understand that the tension is crushing us.
Reality (Sydney Sweeney) returns...
- 6/2/2023
- by Emily Breen
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Sydney Sweeney’s new movie, Reality, is a story straight out of reality about a former American intelligence specialist who made an inescapable mistake and now faces the consequences for it. The movie is a direct interpretation of the FBI’s recorded transcripts from June 2017, when Reality Winner was held up in her own home by the FBI. The movie is an in-depth representation of how FBI agents may communicate with people who are about to be in trouble, along with telling Reality’s story and why her voice was important. It’s a really short movie with a run time of under 90 minutes that, for the most part, takes place in a room in Reality’s home. Let’s break it down a little bit.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Reality’?
Reality Winner is driving home after a grocery run and having a decent day until, when...
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Reality’?
Reality Winner is driving home after a grocery run and having a decent day until, when...
- 5/30/2023
- by Ruchika Bhat
- Film Fugitives
On a summer day in 2017, a woman was unloading her groceries when black SUVs suddenly rolled up to her home with FBI agents inside. A few hours later, the woman -- Nsa translator Reality Winner -- would be arrested and sentenced to five years and three months in prison for leaking a classified document about Russian involvement in the 2016 election to the press. Before she was arrested, though, Reality went through a surreal questioning process, talking with agents about CrossFit, her dogs, and her work habits, including printing documents out on pretty paper.
It's these details that make up "Reality," a narrative-nonfiction hybrid film that's much more captivating -- and harrowing -- than its FBI-small-talk premise might indicate. The film, directed and co-written by playwright Tina Satter in her filmmaking debut, pulls its dialogue entirely from the real, redacted FBI transcripts from Winner's June 3, 2017 arrest. "Reality" doesn't quite unfold in real-time,...
It's these details that make up "Reality," a narrative-nonfiction hybrid film that's much more captivating -- and harrowing -- than its FBI-small-talk premise might indicate. The film, directed and co-written by playwright Tina Satter in her filmmaking debut, pulls its dialogue entirely from the real, redacted FBI transcripts from Winner's June 3, 2017 arrest. "Reality" doesn't quite unfold in real-time,...
- 5/29/2023
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
Former enlisted U.S. Air Force member and Nsa translator Reality Winner, who was arrested by federal authorities in 2017 for leaking classified information, has a fortuitous first name for a dramatist looking to interrogate both the state of our world and the lines between fiction and document, between script and transcript. Hence the straightforward title of Tina Satter’s Reality, the resonances of which hardly need further explanation.
The dialogue in Satter and James Paul Dallas’s screenplay is drawn directly from recordings the F.B.I. made as they executed a search warrant on Reality’s home in Augusta, Georgia, and interviewed the young woman about her illegal leak of intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 election to online news publication The Intercept. This would seem to include all the awkward pauses, the uncomfortable small talk, and the sudden coughs and throat clears that become such unsettling features of Satter’s portrait of Winner’s ordeal.
The dialogue in Satter and James Paul Dallas’s screenplay is drawn directly from recordings the F.B.I. made as they executed a search warrant on Reality’s home in Augusta, Georgia, and interviewed the young woman about her illegal leak of intelligence on Russian interference in the 2016 election to online news publication The Intercept. This would seem to include all the awkward pauses, the uncomfortable small talk, and the sudden coughs and throat clears that become such unsettling features of Satter’s portrait of Winner’s ordeal.
- 5/28/2023
- by Pat Brown
- Slant Magazine
Sydney Sweeney builds “character books” for every character she plays listing their possible memories, relationships, and failures.The 25-year-old actress portrays Reality Winner, a former translator for the Nsa (National Security Council) who was hailed for leaking information, in drama film ‘Reality’ and though she was portraying a real person in the film – which is based on the genuine transcripts of her FBI interrogation – she tackled the project in the same way as anything else she works on.She told Big Issue magazine: “I approach all my characters in a very similar manner, where I build these character books for them."I build their entire life from the day they’re born to the first page of the script.“Their memories, a timeline of their life, relationships.“I did that for Reality as well, because I look at all my characters as real people that lie in a TV screen.
- 5/28/2023
- by Jordan Beck
- Bang Showbiz
Sydney Sweeney builds “character books” for every character she plays listing their possible memories, relationships, and failures.The 25-year-old actress portrays Reality Winner, a former translator for the Nsa (National Security Council) who was hailed for leaking information, in drama film ‘Reality’ and though she was portraying a real person in the film – which is based on the genuine transcripts of her FBI interrogation – she tackled the project in the same way as anything else she works on.She told Big Issue magazine: “I approach all my characters in a very similar manner, where I build these character books for them."I build their entire life from the day they’re born to the first page of the script.“Their memories, a timeline of their life, relationships.“I did that for Reality as well, because I look at all my characters as real people that lie in a TV screen.
- 5/28/2023
- by Jordan Beck
- Bang Showbiz
Sydney Sweeney has almost no memory of her 25th birthday last fall.
“I don’t think I processed that night. I don’t think I even realized where I was that day. It was crazy,” the actress said to IndieWire. While others throw parties or go on vacation to celebrate the milestone birthday where one now has a much easier time renting a car (and a harder time should they enter a quarterlife crisis), Sweeney’s big day happened to coincide with her attending her first ever Primetime Emmys, as a double nominee no less.
“It was such an amazing moment, but I did not live in the moment as much as I should have. I think I was just in shock the whole time,” said “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria” star. “I don’t even know who I talked to. I can’t remember a single thing. […] It truly...
“I don’t think I processed that night. I don’t think I even realized where I was that day. It was crazy,” the actress said to IndieWire. While others throw parties or go on vacation to celebrate the milestone birthday where one now has a much easier time renting a car (and a harder time should they enter a quarterlife crisis), Sweeney’s big day happened to coincide with her attending her first ever Primetime Emmys, as a double nominee no less.
“It was such an amazing moment, but I did not live in the moment as much as I should have. I think I was just in shock the whole time,” said “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria” star. “I don’t even know who I talked to. I can’t remember a single thing. […] It truly...
- 5/23/2023
- by Marcus Jones
- Indiewire
Sydney Sweeney is in her letting-loose era.
The “Euphoria” and “White Lotus” Emmy nominee told IndieWire that upcoming rom-com “Anyone but You” unlocked a new level of comedy in her career. Sweeney marks her first foray into the romantic comedy genre alongside “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout and “Set It Up” leading man Glen Powell for the rated-r comedy, co-starring Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Alexandra Shipp, Michelle Hurd, Darren Barnett, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, and Gata.
“I feel like I learned from everybody. I worked with Dermot, Rachel, [director] Will Gluck. Everybody on set were just comedy legends,” Sweeney said while on the red carpet for HBO’s New York screening of her upcoming “Reality.” “I feel like we just laughed every day.”
She added, “That’s what I learned, which was to have fun and be crazy and let loose and not be self-conscious about anything.”
“Anyone but You” is helmed...
The “Euphoria” and “White Lotus” Emmy nominee told IndieWire that upcoming rom-com “Anyone but You” unlocked a new level of comedy in her career. Sweeney marks her first foray into the romantic comedy genre alongside “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout and “Set It Up” leading man Glen Powell for the rated-r comedy, co-starring Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Alexandra Shipp, Michelle Hurd, Darren Barnett, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, and Gata.
“I feel like I learned from everybody. I worked with Dermot, Rachel, [director] Will Gluck. Everybody on set were just comedy legends,” Sweeney said while on the red carpet for HBO’s New York screening of her upcoming “Reality.” “I feel like we just laughed every day.”
She added, “That’s what I learned, which was to have fun and be crazy and let loose and not be self-conscious about anything.”
“Anyone but You” is helmed...
- 5/18/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson and Vincent Perella
- Indiewire
Sydney Sweeney is being stalked by the FBI.
The “Euphoria” Emmy nominee leads HBO film “Reality,” based on writer-director Tina Satter’s 2019 play “Is This A Room.”
On June 3, 2017, 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner (Sweeney) is confronted by FBI agents, played by Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, arriving at her home to question her suspected role in the mishandling of classified information. Reality Winner is an ex-Air Force member and Nsa translator who later received the harshest sentence, five years and three months in prison, for the unauthorized release of government information to the media leading to FBI director James Comey being fired for the investigation into how Russian interference affected the 2016 election.
Based on true events, the film’s dialogue, as with the acclaimed Off-Broadway play, comes directly from the transcript of their tense and transfixing conversation.
“Reality” debuted at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, marking Satter...
The “Euphoria” Emmy nominee leads HBO film “Reality,” based on writer-director Tina Satter’s 2019 play “Is This A Room.”
On June 3, 2017, 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner (Sweeney) is confronted by FBI agents, played by Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, arriving at her home to question her suspected role in the mishandling of classified information. Reality Winner is an ex-Air Force member and Nsa translator who later received the harshest sentence, five years and three months in prison, for the unauthorized release of government information to the media leading to FBI director James Comey being fired for the investigation into how Russian interference affected the 2016 election.
Based on true events, the film’s dialogue, as with the acclaimed Off-Broadway play, comes directly from the transcript of their tense and transfixing conversation.
“Reality” debuted at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, marking Satter...
- 4/19/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
In the early hours of a June afternoon in 2017, a young woman named Reality Winner heard a knock on the door of her Texas home. Standing on the doorstep were two FBI agents who asked, in a cordial though not un-threatening tone, to be let inside. The conversation that unfolded between them over the following 90 minutes would not only change the course of Winner's life, but alter the trajectory of the country's history. The following year she would be sentenced to five years and three months in jail on charges that she wilfully stole and distributed classified documents surrounding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The Reality Winner story was plastered across the media in 2017 and 2018, rising to the level of front page news for months in a time when every day seemed to dredge up shocking front page news: accusations that The Intercept, the outlet Winner mailed the documents to,...
The Reality Winner story was plastered across the media in 2017 and 2018, rising to the level of front page news for months in a time when every day seemed to dredge up shocking front page news: accusations that The Intercept, the outlet Winner mailed the documents to,...
- 2/25/2023
- by Ryan Coleman
- Slash Film
On the morning of June 3, 2017, a 25-year-old former Air Force linguist improbably named Reality Winner was surprised by the FBI at her home in Augusta, Georgia. Over the next few hours, Winner would be interrogated and eventually charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election of Donald Trump to the online whistle-blower site The Intercept. In court, she was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, the longest federal sentence ever ordered for the unauthorized release of government information to the media. Reality Winner served four years of her sentence behind bars, before being released to a transitional facility in June 2021.
Those bare facts are well-known and have been exhaustively discussed, dissected and debated.
But in Reality, director Tina Satter, adapting her own 2021 Broadway play Is This A Room?, digs into the subtext of the Reality Winner case. Using the verbatim recording of that...
Those bare facts are well-known and have been exhaustively discussed, dissected and debated.
But in Reality, director Tina Satter, adapting her own 2021 Broadway play Is This A Room?, digs into the subtext of the Reality Winner case. Using the verbatim recording of that...
- 2/17/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Emilia Jones (Coda) is set to lead director Susanna Fogel’s darkly comedic biopic Winner, which has started principal photography.
After exposing Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Reality Winner was sentenced to five and a half years in prison — the longest sentence ever given to someone charged under the Espionage Act — for leaking a government document.
Connie Britton has been cast to play Reality’s mother and Galifianakis Reality’s father. Danny Ramirez and Kathryn Newton also will star.
The story follows Winner (Jones), a brilliant young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the U.S. Air Force and working as an Nsa contractor. The film will offer a fresh take on the traditional whistleblower thriller; the coming-of-age story follows an idealistic young woman persecuted for standing by her principles.
The film is written by Kerry Howley and based on Howley...
After exposing Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Reality Winner was sentenced to five and a half years in prison — the longest sentence ever given to someone charged under the Espionage Act — for leaking a government document.
Connie Britton has been cast to play Reality’s mother and Galifianakis Reality’s father. Danny Ramirez and Kathryn Newton also will star.
The story follows Winner (Jones), a brilliant young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the U.S. Air Force and working as an Nsa contractor. The film will offer a fresh take on the traditional whistleblower thriller; the coming-of-age story follows an idealistic young woman persecuted for standing by her principles.
The film is written by Kerry Howley and based on Howley...
- 10/24/2022
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
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