Citizenfour

Director: Laura Poitras

2012 / 114min / DCP

While in the midst of preparing to make a film about the creeping encroachments into personal privacy by the post-9/11 national security apparatus, Poitras was contacted by an anonymous figure identifying himself only as “Citizen Four.” A few months later she was in Hong Kong meeting with her mysterious correspondent, none other than Edward Snowden, the former NSA subcontractor turned whistleblower, and this filmed meeting and subsequent encounters produced one of the most lauded nonfiction films of the 2010s, essential viewing for anyone concerned with the ceding of our rights to various intelligence programs in the dubious name of “safety.” “More than just an unsettling bulletin from the blurry front lines of American intelligence’s surveillance campaign. It’s a stirring, sophisticated work of cinema verité, a virtuoso feat of high-tension interview editing.” —Film Comment

Distributor: Lionsgate