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Cover-Up film image; man talking on a corded phone with his feet up on his desk

Cover-Up

Insights

© The New York Times

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In a world saturated with disinformation, Cover-Up pulls us into the uncompromising ethos of one of journalism’s most legendary truth-tellers: Seymour Hersh. From exposing the My Lai massacre to unraveling CIA abuses and Abu Ghraib atrocities, Hersh has spent decades dragging concealed histories into the light — often at great personal and political cost. In this gripping portrait, Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) and Emmy-winning Frontline-producer Mark Obenhaus trace Hersh’s singular process with intimacy, skepticism, and bite. “I barely trust you guys,” Hersh quips, establishing a candid and often thorny dynamic between subject and directors.

Cover-Up is a layered meditation on source protection, moral clarity, and the imperative to report when it’s needed most, with the film mirroring Hersh’s own rigor — never comfortable, always urgent. Crucially, the film’s story bridges past and present: Hersh is still reporting, still outraging the powerful, now turning his unflinching gaze toward Gaza. Cover-Up isn’t a retrospective, it’s a dispatch from a frontline that never pulled back.

 

Media Partner

Tyee logo

Community Partner

Directors

Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus

Featuring

Seymour Hersh

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2025

Language

English

Content Warning

Graphic violence

18+

At International Village

19+

At Fifth Avenue

117 min
Art, Music & Photography Documentary Legendary Filmmakers Women Directors

Book Tickets

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Credits

Executive Producer

Thomas MacWhirr, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Josh Braun, Nick Shumaker

Producer

Yoni Golijov, Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus, Olivia Streisand

Cinematography

Mia Cioffi Henry

Editor

Amy Foote, Peter Bowman, Laura Poitras

Original Music

Maya Shenfeld

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