Overview

• Cover-Up, co-directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus, premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, offering an archival-rich portrait of Seymour Hersh’s five-decade career.
• Hersh told a Venice press conference that the United States faces an existential crisis and said he is working to investigate President Donald Trump despite lacking the access he wants.
• The documentary draws extensively on Hersh’s notebooks and archives and depicts his fierce protection of anonymous sources, including objections to material he felt could endanger them.
• The film briefly addresses controversies over Hersh’s late-career claims on Syria’s chemical attacks, the Nord Stream blasts, and a reported Trump decision to bomb Iranian facilities, noting probes that have undermined those assertions.
• Poitras framed the work as nonfiction cinema rather than activism, while reviews praised the film’s significance and its willingness to challenge Hersh’s conclusions as he continues publishing on Substack at age 88.