DocFest: Cover-Up
October 23, 2025
Urgent and deeply reported, Laura Poitras (All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, DocFest 2022) and Mark Obenhaus (“Frontline”) profile renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in this arresting reflection on power and accountability.
SIFF year-round passes and vouchers are not valid for DocFest screenings.
Tickets
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Thursday, October 23, 2025
For the past six decades, Seymour Hersh has been at the front lines of political journalism in the U.S. Time after time, Hersh’s breakthrough reportage has exposed many of the brutal realities that governments and corporations wanted to cover up. Co-director Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) reached out to Hersh 20 years ago hoping to profile him, but was asked to wait. Her persistence pays off in Cover-Up. For the first time, Hersh shares behind-the-scenes details of how he reported on the My Lai massacre, the CIA’s involvement in assassinate plots on foreign soil, and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, to name a few of his major headlines. Drawing on exclusive access to Hersh’s archives, candid behind-the-scenes accounts, and his prickly, revealing exchanges with the directors, the film captures a restless reporter still chasing “the mass of truth out there.” Compelling and uncompromising, Cover-Up is both a riveting portrait of Hersh and a reflection on press freedom at a perilous time.
- Director: Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
- Principal Cast: Seymour Hersh
- Country: USA
- Year: 2025
- Running Time: 117 min.
- Producer: Yoni Golijov, Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus, Olivia Streisand
- Cinematographers: Mia Cioffi Henry
- Editors: Amy Foote, Peter Bowman, Laura Poitras
- Filmography: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022), Risk (2017), Citizenfour (2014)
- Language: English, Vietnamese, Arabic
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- International Sales: Submarine Entertainment