“Of course, the first rule of NDAs is don’t talk about NDAs,” says Miriam Shor. But with her new documentary My NDA, which is premiering at this year’s SXSW film festival, Shor is doing exactly that.
Shor is no stranger to non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, a legally binding contract that is meant to keep parties from disclosing certain information. As a performer with credits that span prestige television (most recently with the Apple TV+ sensation Pluribus) to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shor has been asked to sign NDAs ahead of projects to protect confidential details. “There’s trade secret NDAs,” she says. “You don’t want me to talk about the latest superhero movie? I’m like, ‘You got it!’”
Shor thought that NDAs had been reconsidered and relegated in the wake of the MeToo movement, which saw multiple women break signed agreements to speak out against their sexual harassment and assault experiences, often in the workplace. But then, several years ago, Shor signed an NDA that made her question both her personal understanding and the public awareness of a seemingly ubiquitous legal document.
“I had to sign [the NDA] and it silenced me from talking about my personal life,” says Shor. “It was nothing as intense or traumatic as what happened to the participants in the film, but the silencing was deeply disturbing.”
Still, Shor doesn’t feel the need to break that NDA. The actual circumstances that led to the signing of this particular agreement were not as troubling as, she says, “the fact that people are telling me I can’t talk.”
After going down a self-described rabbit hole, talking to lawyers, journalists and individuals who have signed and broken NDAs, Shor was steadfast about pursuing the subject as a documentary. She says, “I became a dog with a bone, really.”
While she had directed in the past — episodes of her long-running television series Younger — Shor had never attempted feature filmmaking, let alone documentary feature filmmaking. She wanted an experienced partner and found one in Juliane Dressner.
Meeting with Shor in a New York City park in the spring of 2021, still early in the COVID pandemic, Dressner wasn’t sure that NDAs could make for a compelling documentary. Dressner, whose credits include the Emmy-nominated doc Personal Statement, likes to avoid non-fiction filmmaking that is reliant on talking heads, and stories that involve a lot of legalese.
But after more research and speaking to employment attorney Vince White, the co-directors, says Dresnner, “We realized that there’s another way — a much harder way — to tell this story.” She adds, “We could learn about the risks from the perspective of somebody who was facing them, following them all the way through breaking, if they decide to, their NDA.” For My NDA, which will screen in the festival’s documentary feature competition, the filmmakers took a first-person perspective on how NDAs are being weaponized.
After MeToo and continuing into the 2020s, there was a wave of reporting that came about after individuals — from the Harvey Weinstein accusers to Facebook whistleblowers — broke their NDAs . These stories have filled the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and many other publications, including this one.
Shor points out that these stories are focused on the reason individuals signed NDAs in the first place, from harmful business practices to settlements for various wrongdoings. She says, “What we realized our way in — and also what seemed under-reported — was the human cost of being silenced.” Because of this, My NDA focuses on the emotional toll that comes with being legally gagged and weighing personal morals against the constant threat of retaliatory lawsuits.
The doc centers on three subjects from different industries, as they go through the process of breaking their NDAs. Ashley Kostial signed an NDA with her employer, the software company SAP, after she was raped by a colleague during a work trip to Plano, Texas. Along with Kostiel, there is Ifeoma Ozoma, a former Pinterest employee turned whistleblower who spoke up about racial discrimination inside the tech company, and Lachlan Cartwright, the former National Enquirer journalist who came forward about the magazine’s catch-and-kill tactics at the behest of powerful men, including President Donald Trump.
Over the course of several years, Shor and Dressner, along with producer Elizabeth Woodward of production company Willa, followed their subjects as they talked to journalists, both anonymously and on the record, met with their lawyers and fought for legislation against abuses of NDAs.
Filming took place with even more subjects, but participants periodically exited the documentary after making the choice not to break their NDAs. Says Shor, “We had to be aware that, when we filmed, they might not end up being in the movie if it was going to put them at risk.”
In the middle of production, one subject had legal action brought against her. Says Dressner, “There’s currently a lawsuit. It’s ongoing and she felt that she could no longer add more potential damage as she’s fighting the lawsuit.” Still, this woman wanted to remain in the documentary, in whatever way she could. The directors were able to anonymize her as “Jane”, altering her voice and rotoscoping her face and body. The effect onscreen is ghostly, with “Jane” acting as a specter of the many who are stifled by NDAs.
The directors’ goal with their documetnary, which is seeking distribution out of SXSW, is to bring more awareness to the threat and abuse of NDAs. Says Shor, “People want to categorize NDAs as a woman’s problem often, because of the MeToo movement. Or they just want to make it someone else’s problem. The reality is it’s quite universal.”
Shor and Dressner point out that boilerplate NDA language has begun a variety of seemingly unnecessary legal agreements (see: residential leases).
During production, Dressner needed their subjects and interviewees to sign releases in order to be filmed. She remembers, “We get the template, and it’s got an NDA in it.” Shor interjects, “Which we obviously removed!”
