'Citizenfour' director sues US government officials

London: The Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras is suing the US government demanding to know why she has repeatedly been subjected to "Kafkaesque harassment" at airports across the world.

In a lawsuit filed in Washington, DC by rights organisation Electronic Frontier Foundation, Poitras claims she was subjected to six years of harassment, searches and seizures at the US and foreign airports between 2006 and 2012, reported The Guardian.

She said the ordeal began after she released the documentary "My Country, My Country" about the US occupation of Iraq and it continued until 2012, when she claims it stopped after journalist Glenn Greenwald detailed the harassment in an article for The Atlantic.

Producers of the film also reportedly petitioned the Department of Homeland Security in protest of the extra scrutiny.

"I'm filing this lawsuit because the government uses the US border to bypass the rule of law. This simply should not be tolerated in a democracy," a statement from Poitras reads.

"I am also filing this suit in support of the countless other less high-profile people who have also been subjected to years of Kafkaesque harassment at the borders. We have a right to know how this system works and why we are targeted," she added.

Poitras lists officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the lawsuit and is seeking records of the alleged harassment.

The director won an Oscar for "Citizenfour" - her study of exiled US national security whistleblower Edward Snowden - in 2015.