“You asked why I picked you. I didn’t. You did.”

In January 2013, Laura Poitras started receiving encrypted e-mails from an anonymous source identified as “citizen four,” who claimed to have evidence of illegal covert surveillance programs run by the NSA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies worldwide.

In June 2013 Poitras and the reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man, who turned out to be Edward Snowden. Poitras brought her camera with her. The resulting film is a real-life thriller, unfolding minute-by-minute before our eyes.

Citizenfour is Laura Poitras’ highly anticipated film about the worldwide mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden. Citizenfour is the final film in Poitras’ 9/11 trilogy, following the Academy Award-nominated My Country, My Country on the Iraq War and the Emmy-nominated The Oath about Guantánamo.

Languages: English, German, Portuguese
Subtitles: English

[like]