Interview: Director Tina Satter – “Reality is stranger than fiction”

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday afternoon in June 2017, 25 year old Reality Winner arrived at her Georgia home. Seconds later, she was confronted by FBI agents.

Released in UK cinemas this week, Reality is a tense thriller based on the FBI transcripts of the gruelling interrogation that followed over the course of several hours in an unused room at the back of Winner’s own house. Accused of putting confidential documents in the public domain, she was to become the first whistle-blower of the Trump era. The film was written and directed by Tina Satter, who also wrote the original stage play about the incident.

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In this interview, Satter describes how she came across the transcripts and why she felt the story would work on both stage and screen, as well as the challenges she faced in adapting the material, especially sections which had been redacted. She also speculates about whether the FBI took an interest in her personally. And she describes why she feels there is definitely something stranger than fiction about the events we see in the film.

Reality is released in UK cinemas on 2nd June.

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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