Oscar-winning director Laura Poitras is to focus on controversial WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange for a new series, set to preview at this year’s New York film festival.

The Citizenfour film-maker will showcase Field of Vision: New Episodic Nonfiction, which will be a collection of her short works and will include a preview of her new TV series Asylum.

The series will focus on Assange as he publishes classified documents and seeks asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Poitras started filming him in 2012, before she made Citizenfour. It was reportedly an early out-take of the footage, which was posted to the New York Times site, that caused Edward Snowden to contact her.

In July, Poitras claimed she had been the victim of “Kafkaesque harrassment” while making the series. The 51-year-old director announced she was suing the US government for unreasonable border searches, some of which lasted for hours.

The programme is one of many announcements for this year’s New York film festival, which also includes a documentary about Nora Ephron called Everything Is Copy, directed by her son.

Films previously confirmed for the festival include Steven Spielberg’s thriller Bridge of Spies and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic.

This December will also see the release of Oliver Stone’s Snowden, which casts Oscar-winner Melissa Leo in the role of Poitras. The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nicolas Cage and Shailene Woodley.