Timetable

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Laura Poitras

US
2022
Documentary
117’
OmU
Panorama

In a Rorschach psychological test, Nan Goldin’s sister, who is undergoing psychotherapeutic treatment, sees something that she sums up in a few words: »The Beauty and the Bloodshed«. The dialectic between life and death, biography and work unfolds in Laura Poitras’ vivid documentary on photographer Nan Goldin. While Goldin’s photographs always vividly look for the intervals of happiness between the abyss, excess, addiction, love, consumption and resistance, the cinematic narrative also follows Goldin as an activist. Together with the group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), she managed to have the Sackler family, who were largely responsible for the marketing of opioids, taken to court. The mass prescribing of painkillers led to a sharp rise in deaths from addiction in the US.
With the hand-held camera also capturing the caring, friendly way the activists interact with each other between planning meetings and campaign activities, it soon becomes clear that human closeness remains the source of creative power. It runs through the film, as we also become cinematically immersed in the slideshows and photographs. Because following on from the photographic camera, the film now offers us the opportunity to reflect together, with Goldin’s voice-over, on how far biography and work are connected, or whether, conversely, we can also free ourselves from social dependencies through art.

Director / Cinematography

Laura Poitras

Editing

Amy Foote, Joe Bini, Brian A. Kates

Sound

Chris Foster

Music

Soundwalk Collective

With

Nan Goldin

Production

Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, Laura Poitras

Co-production

Megan Kapler

Contact

Plaion Pictures

Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras is a director, producer and journalist. She studied film at San Francisco Art Institute and media at the New School in New York. She started making experimental films, but then moved on to documentaries and focused on political issues of injustice. Her film trilogy The New American Century addressed the aftermath of 9/11 and thus also the war in Iraq. Her film Citzenfour, about whistle-blower Edward Snowden, won her an Oscar in 2014, and various international awards followed. She just recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed which was also nominated for an Oscar.


Films by Laura Poitras
Risk 2016 | Citizenfour 2014 | Death of a Prisoner 2013 | The Program 2012 | The Oath 2010 | My Country My Country 2006