Academy Award Winner Bigelow Met with White House Officials For Bin Laden Film

On Wednesday May 22, 2012, new controversy erupted as a conservative watchdog organization uncovered 153 pages of records revealing that meetings between the filmmaker Katherine Bigelow, writer Mark Boal and White House officials took place. 

Last summer, it was it was announced that Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow would make a film about the search for Osama Bin Laden. The film acquired by Sony Pictures written by Mark Boal would be the second collaboration between Boal and Bieglow since they won the Oscar for "The Hurt Locker" in 2010. The Bin laden film was immediately seen as controversial due to its subject matter.

According to these transcripts the director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal were granted access by President Obama's Defense Department and CIA to a "planner, Operator and Commander," of the NAVY SEAL team that was responsible for the capture and killing of bin Laden.

The reports fueled a complaint by the Judicial Watch President Tom Fitten stating that "These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected filmmakers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader."

He also stated that "It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch's pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie 'perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost' to the Obama campaign."

The house committee on Homeland Security Chair Representative Peter King also expressed disappointment stating that the filmmakers engaged in an ""extremely close, unprecedented, and potentially dangerous collaboration with top officials at the CIA, DoD, and the White House and a top Democratic lobbying firm.

Bigelow and Boal, as well as representatives for Sony Pictures, declined to comment on the records and instead repeated a statement issued in August 2011 after the controversy over the film topic. In the statement they highlighted the long-term efforts of the filmmakers to secure as much information as possible for the film. They stated that "Our upcoming film project about the decade-long pursuit of bin Laden has been in the works for many years and integrates the collective efforts of three administrations, including those of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, as well as the cooperative strategies and implementation by the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency," the statement said.

"Indeed, the dangerous work of finding the world's most wanted man was carried out by individuals in the military and intelligence communities who put their lives at risk for the greater good without regard for political affiliation. This was an American triumph, both heroic and non-partisan and there is no basis to suggest that our film will represent this enormous victory otherwise."

Bigelow's film entitled "Zero Dark Thrity" is scheduled to be released December 19, 2012, after the November elections where President Obama will likely face off against Republican Mitt Romney for the Presidency.