Citizenfour

Citizenfour

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Laura Poitras
Produced by Laura Poitras
Mathilde Bonnefoy
Dirk Wilutzky
Starring Edward Snowden
Glenn Greenwald
William Binney
Jacob Appelbaum
Ewen MacAskill
Cinematography Kirsten Johnson
Katy Scoggin
Trevor Paglen
Edited by Mathilde Bonnefoy
Production
company
Distributed by Radius-TWC
Release dates
Running time
 114 minutes
Country United States
Germany
Language English
German
Portuguese
Box office 2,976,559[1]

Citizenfour is a 2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. Shot in the cinéma vérité style,[2] the film had its U.S. premiere on October 10, 2014 at the New York Film Festival and its UK premiere on October 17, 2014 at the BFI London Film Festival. The film features Glenn Greenwald and was co-produced by Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, and Dirk Wilutzky, with Steven Soderbergh and others serving as executive producers. Citizenfour won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Oscars.

Background

Shot from the film trailer for Citizenfour

In January 2013, Laura Poitras received an encrypted e-mail from a stranger who called himself Citizen Four.[3] In it, he offered her inside information about illegal wiretapping practices of the US National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies. Poitras had already been working for several years on a film about monitoring programs in the US that were the result of the September 11 attacks. In June 2013, accompanied by investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill,[4] she went to Hong Kong with her camera for the first meeting with the stranger, who identified himself as Edward Snowden.

After four days of interviews, on June 9 Snowden's identity is made public at his request. As media outlets begin to discover his location at the The Mira Hong Kong, Snowden relocates to Poitras' room in an attempt to elude phone calls made to his room. Facing potential extradition and prosecution in the United States, Snowden schedules a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and applies for refugee status. After Poitras believes she is being followed, she leaves Hong Kong for Berlin.

On June 21, the US government requests the Hong Kong government extradite Snowden. Snowden manages to depart from Hong Kong, but his American passport is cancelled before he can connect to Havana, and he is stranded in the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. On August 1, 2013 the Russian government granted Snowden temporary asylum for a period of one year.[5] Meanwhile, Greenwald has returned to his home in Rio de Janeiro, and speaks publicly about United States' utilization of NSA programs for foreign surveillance. Greenwald and Poitras maintain a correspondence wherein they both express reluctance to return to the United States.

Throughout, the film offers smaller vignettes that precede and follow Snowden's Hong Kong interviews, including William Binney speaking about NSA programs, and eventually testifying before the German Parliament regarding NSA spying in Germany.

The film closes with Greenwald, Snowden and Poitras meeting once again, this time in Russia. Greenwald and Snowden discuss new emerging details on US intelligence programs, careful to only write down and not speak critical pieces of information. Greenwald tears these documents creating a pile of scraps, before slowly removing them from the table.

Cast

Production

By 2012, Laura Poitras had begun work on the third film in her 9/11 trilogy which she intended to focus broadly on the topic of domestic surveillance for which she interviewed Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, William Binney and Jacob Appelbaum.[6] She was first contacted by Edward Snowden in January 2013 after he was unable to establish encrypted communications with Greenwald.[7][8] She flew to Hong Kong in late May 2013, where over the course of eight days she filmed Snowden in his hotel room[6] at the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong. Later, she traveled to Moscow where she filmed a second interview with Snowden conducted by Greenwald.

Production company Praxis Films was involved in the production of the documentary. The film was distributed by RADIUS TWC in the US,[9] Britdoc Foundation and Artificial Eye in the UK[10] and Piffl Media in Germany. The broadcast rights for television were obtained by Channel 4 (United Kingdom), HBO Documentary Films (USA) and Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Germany).

Release

The international film premiere took place on October 10, 2014 in the United States at the New York Film Festival. In Europe, the documentary was shown for the first time on October 17 at the London Film Festival. The first showing in Germany was on October 27 as part of the Leipzig Film Festival. The director Laura Poitras was present in Hamburg Abaton cinema for a preview on November 4–5 at the official Germany Premiere at Kino International. In German cinemas, the film has been running since November 6. Its widest release as of January 22, 2015 was 105 theaters, in the weekend of December 12–18, 2014.[11]

It premiered on Home Box Office on February 23, 2015, the day after the 87th Academy Awards[12] and was subsequently released for streaming on HBO Go.[13] Channel 4 broadcast it in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2015[14] and has released it for view-on-demand through March 4, 2015.[15]

Reception

Citizenfour received widespread critical acclaim. It has a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 124 critics, with an average score of 8.3/10. Metacritic gave the film an 88 out of 100 based on a normalized rating of 38 reviews.[16]

Ronnie Scheib of Variety wrote "No amount of familiarity with whistleblower Edward Snowden and his shocking revelations of the U.S. government's wholesale spying on its own citizens can prepare one for the impact of Laura Poitras's extraordinary documentary Citizenfour... far from reconstructing or analyzing a fait accompli, the film tersely records the deed in real time, as Poitras and fellow journalist Glenn Greenwald meet Snowden over an eight-day period in a Hong Kong hotel room to plot how and when they will unleash the bombshell that shook the world. Adapting the cold language of data encryption to recount a dramatic saga of abuse of power and justified paranoia, Poitras brilliantly demonstrates that information is a weapon that cuts both ways."[17]

Spencer Ackerman writes in The Guardian: "Citizenfour must have been a maddening documentary to film. Its subject is pervasive global surveillance, an enveloping digital act that spreads without visibility, so its scenes unfold in courtrooms, hearing chambers and hotels. Yet the virtuosity of Laura Poitras, its director and architect, makes its 114 minutes crackle with the nervous energy of revelation."[18]

Time magazine rated the film #8 out of its top 10 movies of 2014[19] and called the film "This Halloween's Scariest Chiller".[20] Vanity Fair rated it #4 out of its top 10[21] and Grantland rated it #3 of its top 10.[22] Writing for the Chicago Tribune, former Defense Department intelligence analyst Alex Lyda penned a negative review, calling Snowden "more narcissist than patriot".[23] David Edelstein reviewed the film mostly favorably, and jocularly advised viewers "don't buy your ticket online or with a credit card".[24]

The film site Fandor has published an extensive survey of other articles and reviews about Citizenfour, updated through December 25, 2014.[25]

Lawsuit

In December 2014, retired naval officer and oil executive Horace Edwards of Kansas filed suit against the film's producers "on behalf of the American people" for aiding and abetting Snowden's leaks.[26][27] The Hollywood Reporter provided some legal analysis, noting observers opining that Edwards may not have legal standing to pursue the lawsuit.[28] Edwards also challenged the film's Oscar eligibility on the grounds that Poitras's 2013 short film showing Greenwald interviewing Snowden constituted a previous release of Citizenfour, rendering it ineligible under Oscar rules. The Academy rejected the claim, noting that "the Guardian interview appears in less than two minutes of the documentary", and ruled that Citizenfour was eligible for Oscar consideration.[29]

In February 2015, the filmmakers asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas to dismiss the lawsuit on standing and jurisdictional grounds, and on First Amendment grounds citing Bartnicki v. Vopper.[30]

Awards and nominations

Awards
Award Date of ceremony Category Recipients and nominees Result
DOK Leipzig 2014[31] October 29, 2014 "Leipziger Ring" Citizenfour Won
Gotham Independent Film Awards December 1, 2014 Best Documentary Citizenfour Won
IDA Documentary Awards[32] December 5, 2014 Best Feature Citizenfour Won
Cinema Eye Honors[33] January 7, 2015 Outstanding Achievements in Nonfiction Filmmaking Citizenfour Won
Outstanding Achievements in Direction Laura Poitras Won
Outstanding Achievements in Editing Mathilde Bonnefoy Won
Outstanding Achievements in Production Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutsky Won
Audience Choice Citizenfour Nominated
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography Nominated
Critics' Choice Movie Award January 15, 2015 Best Documentary Feature Citizenfour Won
ACE Eddie Award January 30, 2015 Best Edited Documentary Feature Mathilde Bonnefoy Won
Directors Guild of America Award[34] February 7, 2015 Outstanding Directing – Documentaries Laura Poitras Won
BAFTA Awards[35] February 8, 2015 Best Documentary Citizenfour Won
Satellite Awards February 15, 2015 Best Documentary Film Citizenfour Won
Independent Spirit Awards February 21, 2015 Best Documentary Citizenfour Won
Academy Awards[36] February 22, 2015 Best Documentary Feature Citizenfour Won

At DOK Leipzig 2014, when Citizenfour won the Leipziger Ring award, Edward Snowden gave a video message to the festival.[37]

Citizenfour won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[38] It was considered the frontrunner heading into the awards;[39][40][41] Brent Lang of Variety called for Citizenfour to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture,[42] with THR's Gregg Kilday discussing its prospects,[43] but it was not nominated in that category.

Poitras also received several journalistic and humanitarian awards for reporting the Snowden disclosures depicted in the film, including the George Polk award (with Greenwald and MacAskill),[44] the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize (with Edward Snowden)[45] the Carl von Ossietzky medal for human rights (with Greenwald and Snowden),[46] and the Henri Nannen Prize for Efforts for Independence of the Press.[47] The Guardian and the Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting by Poitras, Greenwald, MacAskill, and Barton Gellman.[48]

Security

Poitras took many security precautions related to the film, described by military writer Peter Maass among others.[49] She moved to Berlin, Germany[50] after being detained repeatedly at border controls when entering the US.[49] She edited the film in Germany after flying directly there from Hong Kong with the Snowden footage, to prevent the FBI from showing up with a search warrant for her hard drives. All the film footage is kept on encrypted drives with multiple levels of nested protection.[51] The computer she uses for reading sensitive documents is separated from the internet by an air gap. Greenwald credited her with a "complete expert level of understanding of how to do a story like this with total technical and operational safety". Maass called Poitras' security skills "particularly vital — and far from the journalistic norm — in an era of pervasive government spying", and quotes Snowden stating that "[i]n the wake of this year's disclosure, it should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless."[49]

Mathilde Bonnefoy has also discussed the encrypted workflow used in making the film, adding "if we have a conversation that's particularly confidential, we'll move the electronics out of the room, or we'll just meet somewhere outside of the editing room, without our phones."[52]

The Film Society of Lincoln Center (which selects films for the New York Film Festival) reported[53] that Poitras changed the location of the initial screening for the NYFF's selection committee several times, in case someone was tracking her movements. The committee was shown a rough cut that had sensitive material redacted, and the NYFF "had to keep the movie's inclusion in the festival under wraps until mid-September" and it was "kept out of festival schedules and documents until we could talk about it openly". The last-minute inclusion in the festival's main slate was an unprecedented event for the NYFF,[54] and "tickets for both screenings sold out within just a few hours".[53]

The film's ending credits unusually[51] name several free software projects and security tools, without which "this film would not be possible". The programs named include Tor, Tails, Debian GNU/Linux, Off-the-Record Messaging, the GNU Privacy Guard, Truecrypt, and SecureDrop. In October 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an informational page about the software credited in the film.[55]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack consists of portions of the Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I–IV, which was released under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA) in 2008.

Related films

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Citizenfour (2014)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved February 24, 2015.
  2. ↑ Dave Nycczepir (January 10, 2015), "NSA, Snowden documentary wins director new PSIFF award", The Desert Sun
  3. ↑ Andy Greenberg (October 13, 2014), These Are the Emails Snowden Sent to First Introduce His Epic NSA Leaks, Wired magazine
  4. ↑ Suzanna Andrews; Bryan Burrough; Sarah Ellison (May 2014), The Snowden Saga: A Shadowland of Secrets and Light, Vanity Fair
  5. ↑ Chumley, Cheryl; Sherfinski, David. "Edward Snowden granted asylum in Russia, leaves airport". The Washington Times. The Washington Times. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Packer, George (October 20, 2014). "Laura Poitras's closeup view of Edward Snowden.". The New Yorker. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  7. ↑ Lapin, Andrew (October 24, 2014). "'Citizenfour' Follows The Snowden Story Without (Much) Grandstanding". NPR. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  8. ↑ Glenn Greenwald, Excerpt: Glenn Greenwald's 'No Place to Hide'
  9. ↑ Lang, Brent (October 26, 2014). "Radius-TWC Chief on 'Citizenfour': 'It's Going to Get Heated'". Variety. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  10. ↑ Frater, Patrick (September 17, 2014). "Edward Snowden Documentary 'Citizenfour' Added to London Festival Lineup". Variety. Retrieved December 12, 2014.
  11. ↑ Citizenfour, Box Office Mojo
  12. ↑ Nellie Andreeva (January 8, 2015), Edward Snowden Docu 'CitizenFour' To Debut On HBO Right After Oscars, deadline.com
  13. ↑ Olivia Armstrong (February 24, 2015), Oscar Winning Edward Snowden Documentary 'Citizenfour' Is Now On HBO Go, Decider
  14. ↑ Joe Mullin (February 23, 2015), PSA: Oscar-winning Citizenfour to air on HBO today
  15. ↑ Citizenfour - Channel 4, Channel 4
  16. ↑ "Citizenfour (2014): Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
  17. ↑ Ronnie Scheib (October 11, 2014), Film Review: 'Citizenfour', Variety magazine
  18. ↑ Ackerman, Spencer (October 11, 2014). "Citizenfour Review – Poitras' Victorious Film Shows Snowden Vindicated". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). Retrieved October 11, 2014.
  19. ↑ Richard Corliss (December 2, 2014), "Top 10 Best Movies", Time magazine
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Richard Corliss (October 26, 2014), "Review: Citizenfour Is This Halloween's Scariest Chiller", Time
  21. ↑ Richard Lawson (December 8, 2014), "The 10 Best Movies of 2014", Vanity Fair
  22. ↑ Wesley Morris (December 18, 2014), The Top 10 Movies of 2014, Grantland
  23. ↑ Alex Lyda (December 23, 2014), "Edward Snowden is more narcissist than patriot", Chicago Tribune
  24. ↑ David Edelstein (October 24, 2014), The Edward Snowden Documentary Citizenfour Puts You Right in the Room As History Is Made, vulture.com
  25. ↑ David Hudson (October 12, 2014), NYFF 2014 - Laura Poitras's Citizenfour, Fandor
  26. ↑ Eriq Gardner (December 22, 2014), "Citizenfour Producers Sued Over Edward Snowden Leaks", The Hollywood Reporter
  27. ↑ Justin Wingerter (December 31, 2014), Topeka man, 89, files suit against Edward Snowden, documentary producers, The Topeka Capital-Journal
  28. ↑ Eriq Gardner (January 14, 2015), "Man Suing Over Citizenfour Looks to Drag U.S. Into Edward Snowden Leaks Lawsuit", The Hollywood Reporter
  29. ↑ Scott Feinberg (December 23, 2014), "Academy Rejects Challenge to Citizenfour Oscar Eligibility", The Hollywood Reporter
  30. ↑ Gardner, Eriq (February 11, 2015), "'Citizenfour' Filmmakers Demand End to Lawsuit Over Edward Snowden Disclosures", The Hollywood Reporter
  31. ↑ Film Prize "LEIPZIGER RING", DOK Leipzig, November 1, 2014
  32. ↑ 30th Annual IDA Documentary Awards Winners
  33. ↑ Hilary Lewis (January 7, 2015), 'Citizenfour' Wins Four Awards at Cinema Eye Honors, Hollywood Reporter
  34. ↑ Dave McNary (February 7, 2015), DGA Awards: 'Birdman' Wins Best Feature Film for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Variety
  35. ↑ "Film in 2015". bafta.org. BAFTA. n.d. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  36. ↑ "The 87th Academy Awards". oscars.org. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  37. ↑ Snowden honors the peaceful revolution in Leipzig, DOK Leipzig, October 28, 2014
  38. ↑ "The 87th Academy Awards". oscars.org. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  39. ↑ Scott Feinberg (October 10, 2014), New York Film Fest: 'Citizenfour' Hacks Way to Top of Uber-Competitive Doc Oscar Race, Hollywood Reporter
  40. ↑ Ben Beaumont-Thomas (January 15, 2015), Oscars 2015: Edward Snowden film Citizenfour leads pack in Oscar documentary category, The Guardian
  41. ↑ Oscars – Best Documentary Feature Betting Odds, Oddschecker.com, retrieved January 24, 2015 reports Citizenfour as a 3:13 favourite according to online bookmakers.
  42. ↑ Brent Lang, Why 'Citizenfour' Deserves a Best Picture Oscar Nomination
  43. ↑ Oscars: Can Edward Snowden Doc 'Citizenfour' Break the Best-Picture Curse?, Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2014
  44. ↑ "2013 GEORGE POLK AWARD WINNERS". Long Island University. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
  45. ↑ Ridenhour Prizes. "The Ridenhour Prizes – Fostering the spirit of courage and truth". Ridenhour.org. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  46. ↑ English Material: Invitation for the Ceremonial act Carl-von-Ossietzky-Medal 2014, Berlin: Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte (International league for human rights), December 10, 2014
  47. ↑ "Henri Nannen Award for Efforts for Independence of the Press". Bertelsmann.com. Bertelsmann. 8 May 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
  48. ↑ "Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations" (Press release). Theguardian.com. 2014-04-14. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 49.2 Peter Maass (August 13, 2013), How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets, New York Times
  50. ↑ Carole Cadwalladr (November 9, 2014), Berlin's digital exiles: where tech activists go to escape the NSA, The Guardian
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 Andy Greenberg (October 15, 2014), Laura Poitras on the Crypto Tools That Made Her Snowden Film Possible, Wired magazine
  52. ↑ Scott Macaulay (Oct 20, 2014), Positive Trauma: Editor Mathilde Bonnefoy on CITIZENFOUR, Filmmaker magazine
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 Eugene Hernandez (October 14, 2014), Silent No More, Laura Poitras Talks About 'CITIZENFOUR', Film Society of Lincoln Center
  54. ↑ Scott Feinberg (September 16, 2014), New York Film Fest: Top-Secret Edward Snowden Doc Added to Lineup, Hollywood Reporter
  55. ↑ Parker Higgins (October 29, 2014), The 7 Privacy Tools Essential to Making Snowden Documentary CITIZENFOUR, Electronic Frontier Foundation
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 Dave McNary (February 22, 2015), 'Citizenfour' Wins Oscar for Best Documentary, Variety magazine
  57. ↑ Joseph Gordon-Levitt to play Edward Snowden in Oliver Stone film, Reuters, November 10, 2014
  58. ↑ Mike Fleming Jr (June 10, 2014), Oliver Stone Buys Edward Snowden Russian Lawyer's "Novel" About Asylum-Seeking Whistleblower, deadline.com
  59. ↑ Laura Poitras (August 22, 2012), The Program Video link (8.5 minutes).
  60. ↑ NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden interview video, June 9, 2013
  61. ↑ Edward Snowden: 'The US government will say I aided our enemies' – video interview, July 8, 2013
  62. ↑ Adam Benzine (October 10, 2014), Exclusive: NDR, DR TV prep "Snowden's Great Escape", Real screen
  63. ↑ Snowdens store flugt, DR1, January 13, 2015
  64. ↑ Stefania Maurizi (10 January 2015), La vera storia della fuga di Edward Snowden (The true story of the flight of Edward Snowden), l'Espresso
  65. ↑ [ v e r a x ] : Edward Snowden / 斯諾登 - Short Film, JShotVideo, Jun 25, 2013
  66. ↑ Scott Macaulay (October 20, 2014), In the Eye of the Storm: Laura Poitras on CITIZENFOUR, Filmmaker

External links