The documentary, directed by Tim Travers Hawkins and executive produced by Laura Poitras, who also worked on the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, seems like it will be a meditation on the idea of battle and the toll a decade of constant battle has taken on Manning. It begins with war footage, and in a voiceover, Manning addresses her time in the military by saying, “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I put the guy who pulled the trigger there.”
From there it moves into the leaking of government documents for which she was sentenced to 35 years in prison before having her sentence commuted by President Barack Obama in the final days of his presidency. The trailer also covers the time that Manning spent in solitary confinement after suicide attempts and alludes to the hunger strike Manning underwent in protest of the prison’s refusal to treat her gender dysphoria. “I’m under suicide watch,” Manning says. “And I want to be treated like a human being. I want to be treated like a woman.”
The documentary is set to follow her through her 2018 Senate run and is especially timely since Manning’s battles aren’t over. She was recently sent back to prison for refusing to testify about the classified documents she provided to WikiLeaks in 2010 and is reportedly being held once again in solitary confinement.
“I feel embattled,” she says in the trailer, and later, “I’m not the person that people think I am.”
XY Chelsea will air on Showtime June 7.