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Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller on Making ICE Doc ‘They’re Here’ Like a “Horror Movie”
Confirmed
In Short: Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller use horror and sci-fi elements in their new documentary to highlight the reality of ICE's invasion of Minneapolis.
Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller have created a new short documentary, 'They’re Here,' which chronicles the invasion and occupation of Minneapolis by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) troops, using horror and sci-fi film techniques to depict the situation.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Poitras and Mueller discussed their approach, noting that the experience felt like a horror film but was also a reflection of reality.
The film draws from horror and sci-fi cinema to portray how a picturesque American Midwestern city is transformed into a dystopian nightmare, aiming to shock Americans into taking action.
Poitras and Mueller used encryption, anonymization, and redaction to protect the identities of the residents who resisted the ICE occupation, ensuring their safety while documenting the events.
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- Rachel and I just started talking about how we were going to approach it, what was going to be different from the news.
- They’re Here is Poitras’s first project since her Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which won the festival’s Golden Lion in 2022 and later earned an Oscar nomination.
- Poitras previously won the best documentary Oscar in 2015 for Citizenfour, her landmark account of Edward Snowden and his NSA surveillance disclosures.
- LAURA POITRAS: So we have a mutual colleague and dear friend of Rachel’s, Adam Mellion, who has worked with me as a researcher on my last two films.