XY Chelsea (15)
Directed by Tim Travers Hawkins

“IF YOU had free rein over classified networks and you saw incredible things, awful things. What would you do?”

This is one of the most poignant questions explored in this eye-opening look at the life and career of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a trans woman soldier in the US army who, having witnessed such “awful things,” instigated the largest leak of secrets in US history.

She disclosed 750,000 documents to WikiLeaks which included the video, which went viral, of US soldiers killing 12 Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad.

Manning was sentenced in 2010 to 35 years in an all-male military prison, despite her being a trans woman, for the leak. In an unprecedented move, President Obama commuted the sentence in 2017.

The film begins on January 17 of that year as Manning’s lawyer Nancy Hollander receives the remarkable news from the president’s office. It follows Manning as she leaves prison after seven years inside to begin her new life as a woman, a very slow and difficult transition.

Film-maker Tim Travers Hawkins, given unprecedented access to Manning, produces a fascinating and intimate portrait. It is very hard to hear her recounting her treatment at the hands of the US military and government, described by a UN torture envoy in 2012 as “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”

The documentary really comes alive when you witness Manning’s joy and wonderment doing ordinary things like putting on lipstick or going to Times Square in New York and being reunited with one of her closest friends.

The film tries to give us an idea of what Manning has been through and that’s not easy to imagine. As Hollander says: “Chelsea will always be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. In this country once you have been marked as an enemy of the state I think you will always be an enemy of the state.”

In March this year she was placed behind bars once again for refusing to testify in an investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, following his arrest in Britain.

With the current intransigent US administration it could be a very long while before Manning, who can be held for 18 months, finds the peace and closure she so much desires.