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Laura Poitras’s Documentary on Opioid Crisis Wins Top Prize at Venice Film Festival

HeadlineSep 12, 2022

In film news, Laura Poitras’s new documentary, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” has won the top prize, the Golden Lion, at the Venice Film Festival. The documentary focuses on the photographer Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family, who made billions selling OxyContin, which helped spark the opioid epidemic. After Nan Goldin became addicted to OxyContin, she founded the group P.A.I.N. — Prescription Addiction Intervention Now — and she organized protests at art museums funded by the Sackler family. Laura Poitras spoke on Saturday after her film became only the second documentary to win the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Laura Poitras: “I’ve known a lot of brave and courageous people in my life, but I’ve never met anyone like Nan, somebody who could decide to take on the billionaire Sackler family, which is ruthless and responsible for countless deaths and so much bloodshed, and decide to, like, take this family down, along with her organization, P.A.I.N.”

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