Director Steve James discusses his new film, A Compassionate Spy, with fellow Director Ondi Timoner in a Q&A at the DGA theater in Los Angeles. In the conversation, he discusses his process of shooting reenactments, the discovery of archival footage of Ted, and his aim to show the nuances and motivations of Ted’s decision.

The film tells the true story of eighteen year-old physicist Ted Hall’s recruitment into the Manhattan Project. In 1944, concerned about U.S. having a monopoly on such a devastating weapon, Ted decides to divulge classified information about the world’s first atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

See photos and a summary of this event below:

https://dga.org/Events/2023/November2023/DocSeries_A_Compassionate_Spy-1023.aspx