Climate activist and writer JANE ROGERS introduces her new collection, Fire-ready, and examines the connection between life and fiction
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Reality Check
MARIA DUARTE recommends a startling and original drama derived entirely from FBI transcripts
COERCION: Sydney Sweeney in Reality
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ELEANOR DOBSON reflects on a stark visual record of the violent desecration of Tutankhamun’s mummified remains
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WANJA KIMANI explores the many bonds of community experience expressed in in the bold and colourful imagery of a new mural
New releases from Keeley, Lucinda Williams and Ye Vagabonds
JAN WOOLF ponders the works and contested reputation of the West German sculptor and provocateur, who believed that everybody is potentially an artist
Reality (12A)
Directed by Tina Satter
ON June 3 2017, 25-year-old former member of the US Air Force and NSA contractor Reality Winner (real name) returned home to be confronted by two FBI agents wanting to question her about the leaking of a classified document to the media about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.
With all the dialogue taken directly from the FBI transcript, what transpires is a tense and chilling docu-drama, anchored by a virtuoso performance from Sydney Sweeney (The White Lotus, Euphoria) as Reality.
Adapted from her 2019 stage play Is This A Room, co-writer directer Tina Satter’s powerful debut feature is a gripping depiction of the gruelling interrogation Reality underwent at the hands of Agent Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Agent Taylor (Marchant Davis). The three leads enact every stutter, um and cough outlined in the transcript, while every redacted sentence is portrayed by visual jump cuts or a character suddenly disappearing.
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