On June 3, 2017, 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner is confronted by FBI agents arriving at her home. Based on true events, Reality documents the tense, transfixing conversation that took place that day. Tina Satter’s reimagines her critically-acclaimed play In a Room for the cinema in her feature debut starring Sydney Sweeney known for her roles in TV hits Euphoria, The White Lotus and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Alternately nail-biting and banal, darkly funny and surreal — we track one woman’s experience of the U.S. government at work. Sweeney (White Lotus, Euphoria) portrays Reality Winner, the real-life whistleblower who, in 2018, was

given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for the unauthorised release of government information after leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference to the media. The film contains verbatim dialogue from the unedited transcript of an FBI audio recording of her interrogation, with Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis as the two agents in charge of Winner’s questioning.

Director Tina Satter presents a snapshot of recent US history that derives all of its tension from the gravity of the situation. The strong imagery and subtle direction of the actors in this drama places it on the cusp of documentary, capturing an unobstructed view of the events of that day – before they became a case that was to polarise the press, the general public and politics.

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