In January 2013, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras began receiving encrypted e-mails from an anonymous source inside the NSA, identified simply as "CitizenFour". In June 2013, Poitras, together with investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and veteran Guardian reporter Ewen MacAskill, travelled to Hong Kong to meet the source: a young man who introduced himself as Edward Snowden. Citizenfour plunges audiences into the extraordinary eight days that followed, as Snowden trades in his comfortable career as a security analyst for the life of a fugitive and lets the world in on the massive data collection and surveillance programs run by Western governments. Along with the lone undertaking of whistleblowing, the erosion of privacy and the limits of popular democracies, Citizenfour explores the invisible lines that divide investigative journalism from documentary as an art form.
The film is the last installment in a trilogy about America’s post-9/11 position in the world, after the Oscar-nominated My Country, My Country (2006), which looks at Iraqi life after the US invasion, and Sundance-winner The Oath (2010, also shown at One World Romania in 2011), which explores the new concentrationary universe spanning from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay through two extraordinary Yemeni destinies.
The documentary has been "adopted" by the Association for Technology and Internet.
AUDIO: English, Portuguese, German
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
awards and festivals
2015 - Academy Awards, SUA, Best Documentary Feature
2015 - Independent Spirit Awards, SUA, Best Documentary
2015 - BAFTA, Marea Britanie, Best Documentary
2015 - Directors' Guild of America, SUA, Best Directorial Achivement in Documentary
2015 - London Critics' Circle Film Awards, Marea Britanie, Documentary of the Year
2015 - Cinema Eye Honors Awards, SUA, Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Feature Filmmaking, Outstanding Achievement in Direction, Outstanding Achievement in Editing, Outstanding Achievement in Production
2015 - National Society of Film Critic Awards, SUA, Best Non-Fiction Film
2014 - New York Film Critics Circle Awards, SUA, Best Non-Fiction Film
2014 - Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, SUA, Best Documentary / Non-Fiction Film
2014 - American Cinema Editors, SUA, Best Edited Documentary Feature
2014 - Gotham Awards, SUA, Best Documentary
2014 - International Documentary Association Awards, SUA, Best Feature