‘Cover-Up’ Trailer – Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s Documentary Profiles Reporter Seymour Hersh

Seymour Hersh, the legendary Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist whose reporting has exposed some of the darkest episodes of U.S. military and intelligence history – from My Lai, to Abu Ghraib, to clandestine surveillance programs is the subject of the new documentary Cover-Up by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus.

Cover-Up had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival, then went on screen at other festivals, including its U.S. premiere at Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The film will receive a limited theatrical release at Film Forum in New York City from December 19th to the 25th, and will be released on Netflix on December 26th.

“Secrets & Lies: Through the Lens of Laura Poitras,” a retrospective, will run November 23 through February 21 at the Paris Theater in New York.

Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh was first to uncover the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, multiple illegal CIA covert operations (including domestic spying and conducting experiments on Americans), and the U.S. Army torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) and Emmy-winning filmmaker Mark Obenhaus trace the history of Hersh’s courageous, iconoclastic reporting (much of which was initially met with skepticism by mainstream outlets), his deep reservoir of sources inside government agencies, and his run-ins with politicians and editors. At a time when freedom of the press is increasingly in jeopardy and self-censorship by major media prevalent, Cover-Up is a reminder of the critical role hard-hitting investigative reporting plays in a democracy.

Poitras said, “This is a film I’ve been wanting to make for over two decades … It is an honor to introduce younger generations—particularly young journalists—to Sy’s outsider muckraking reporting.”

Obenhaus added, “Cover-Up is about a remarkable Reporter, Seymour Hersh. Through him, the film speaks to the essential role of investigative journalism in holding the powerful accountable.”

In their review, The Guardian review called the film ‘a thrilling ode to journalism’ and gave it 4 of 5 stars, writing, “Cover-Up adeptly illustrates the patterns of official cruelty: deny, downplay, quibble, destroy. Justify on the grounds of “national security”. Repeat. “We’re a culture of enormous violence,” Hersh remarks. “You can’t just have a country who does that and looks the other way.” Brisk, lucid and sweeping, Cover-Up assures that some, at least, will not.”

Watch the official trailer for Cover-Up above.