Director Kathryn Bigelow defends torture scenes in her Oscar-nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty,” saying torture was an undeniable part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
The film opens by declaring it’s based on firsthand accounts of actual events.
But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other lawmakers criticized the film as misleading for suggesting torture led to the location of bin Laden. Lawmakers asked Sony Pictures to attach a disclaimer that the film is fictional.
“Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue,” Bigelow wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
The comments were Bigelow’s most explicit reaction to the controversy so far.
“As for what I personally believe, which has been the subject of inquiries, accusations and speculation, I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work,” she continued. “Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore.”
“War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences,” she added.
Bigelow wrote that torture was part of the story and the backlash may be misdirected.
“I do wonder if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these U.S. policies, as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen,” she wrote.
Last week, Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal responded forcefully to a “Zero Dark Thirty” anti-Oscar campaign waged by Ed Asner and other Hollywood actors, saying “to punish an artist’s right of expression is abhorrent.”
Bigelow and “Zero Dark Thirty” screenwriter Mark Boal had said previously that they “depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden.
“The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes,” they said.
Utah Leaders and Locals Rally To Keep Sundance Film Festival In The State
With the 2025 Sundance Film Festival underway, Utah leaders, locals and longtime attendees are making a final push — one that could include paying millions of dollars — to keep the world-renowned film festival as its directors consider uprooting.
Thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read "Keep Sundance in Utah" in a last-ditch effort to convince festival leadership and state officials to keep it in Park City, its home of 41 years.
Gov. Spencer Cox said previously that Utah would not throw as much money at the festival as other states hoping to lure it away. Now his office is urging the Legislature to carve out $3 million for Sundance in the state budget, weeks before the independent film festival is expected to pick a home for the next decade.
It could retain a small presence in picturesque Park City and center itself in nearby Salt Lake City, or move to another finalist — Cincinnati, Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado — beginning in 2027.
"Sundance is Utah, and Utah is Sundance. You can't really separate those two," Cox said. "This is your home, and we desperately hope it will be your home forever."
Last year's festival generated about $132 million for the state of Utah, according to Sundance's 2024 economic impact report.
Festival Director Eugene Hernandez told reporters last week that they had not made a final decision. An announcement is expected this year by early spring.
Colorado is trying to further sweeten its offer. The state is considering legislation giving up to $34 million in tax incentives to film festivals like Sundance through 2036 — on top of the $1.5 million in funds already approved to lure the Utah festival to its neighboring... Read More