CITIZENFOUR (2014) Trailer
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''Citizenfour'' is a 2014
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed by
Laura Poitras Laura Poitras (; born February 2, 1964) is an American director and producer of documentary films. Poitras has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ''Citizenfour'', about Edwa ...
, concerning
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
and the NSA spying scandal. The film had its US premiere on October 10, 2014, at the
New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, it is ...
and its UK premiere on October 17, 2014, at the
BFI London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...
. The film features Snowden and
Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
, and was co-produced by Poitras,
Mathilde Bonnefoy Mathilde Bonnefoy (born 11 March 1972) is a French film editor and director who was nominated for an ACE Eddie Award for the editing of the film '' Run Lola Run'' (1998) and who won the award for editing the documentary ''Citizenfour'' (2014). S ...
, and
Dirk Wilutzky Dirk Wilutzky (born 1965 in Herleshausen, West Germany) is a German film producer and director. He won the shared Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for the 2014 documentary ''Citizenfour'' at the 87th Academy Awards in 2015. He is mar ...
, with
Steven Soderbergh Steven Andrew Soderbergh (; born January 14, 1963) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. A pioneer of modern independent cinema, Soderbergh is an acclaimed and prolific filmmaker. Soderbergh's direc ...
and others serving as
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...
s. ''Citizenfour'' received critical acclaim upon release, and was the recipient of numerous accolades, including Best Documentary Feature at the
87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best 2014 in film, films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, ...
. This film is the third part to a 9/11 trilogy following ''
My Country, My Country ''My Country, My Country'' is a 2006 documentary film about Iraq under U.S. occupation by the filmmaker Laura Poitras. Film Laura Poitras spent over eight months working on her own and for some time following a US Army Civil Affairs team during t ...
'' (2006) and ''
The Oath The Oath may refer to: Books * ''The Oath'' (Wiesel novel), a 1973 novel by Elie Wiesel * ''The Oath'' (Peretti novel), a 1995 novel by Frank E. Peretti * '' The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court'', a 2012 book by Jeffrey Toobin ...
'' (2010).


Synopsis

In January 2013, Laura Poitras, an American documentary film director/producer who had been working for several years on a film about monitoring programs in the United States that were the result of the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, receives an encrypted e-mail from a stranger who calls himself "Citizen Four." (Per a 2014 ''Vice'' article featuring Poitras, Snowden chose this codename as a nod to three NSA whistleblowers who came before him: Bill Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, and Thomas Drake.) In Snowden's initial message to Poitras, he offers her inside information about illegal
wiretapping Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitorin ...
practices of the US
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
(NSA) and other intelligence agencies. In June 2013, accompanied by columnist Glenn Greenwald and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' intelligence reporter
Ewen MacAskill Ewen MacAskill (born 1951)Bryan Burrough, Sarah Ellison and Suzanna Andrew"The Snowden Saga: A Shadowland of Secrets and Light" ''Vanity Fair'', May 2014 is a Scottish journalist. He worked for 22 years on ''The Guardian'', ending his career in ...
, she travels to
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
with her camera for the first meeting with "Citizenfour" in a hotel, who reveals himself as
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
. Scenes of their meeting take place in Snowden's hotel room, where he maintains his privacy. Shots of Snowden in his bed, in front of his mirror and of the hotel from a distance form the character of Snowden as a trapped political agent. 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 Mira Hotel, Snowden moves into Poitras' room in an attempt to elude phone calls made to his room. Facing potential
extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdict ...
and prosecution in the United States, Snowden schedules a meeting with the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
and applies for refugee status. After Poitras believes she is being followed, she leaves Hong Kong for
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. On June 21, the US government requests the Hong Kong government extradite Snowden. Snowden manages to depart from Hong Kong, but his US passport is cancelled before he can connect to
Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.
, stranding him in the
Sheremetyevo International Airport Sheremetyevo Alexander S. Pushkin International Airport ( rus, links=no, Международный аэропорт Шереметьево имени А. С. Пушкина, p=ʂɨrʲɪˈmʲetʲjɪvə ''Mezhdunarodny aeroport Sheremetyevo imen ...
in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
for 40 days. On August 1, 2013, the Russian government grants Snowden temporary
asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...
for a period of one year. Meanwhile, Greenwald returns to his home in
Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
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 The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
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

*
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
*
Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
*
Laura Poitras Laura Poitras (; born February 2, 1964) is an American director and producer of documentary films. Poitras has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ''Citizenfour'', about Edwa ...
*
Ewen MacAskill Ewen MacAskill (born 1951)Bryan Burrough, Sarah Ellison and Suzanna Andrew"The Snowden Saga: A Shadowland of Secrets and Light" ''Vanity Fair'', May 2014 is a Scottish journalist. He worked for 22 years on ''The Guardian'', ending his career in ...
*
Jacob Appelbaum Jacob Appelbaum (born 1 April 1983) is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker. He studied at the Eindhoven University of Technology and was a core member of the Tor project, a free software network des ...
* William Binney *
Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...
*
Ladar Levison Lavabit is an open-source encrypted webmail service, founded in 2004. The service suspended its operations on August 8, 2013 after the U.S. Federal Government ordered it to turn over its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) private keys, in order to allo ...
*
Jeremy Scahill Jeremy Scahill (born October 18, 1974) is an American investigative journalist, writer, a founding editor of the online news publication ''The Intercept,'' and author of '' Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army'', which ...
* Sarah Harrison


Background on Snowden

Born on June 21, 1983 in
Elizabeth City, North Carolina Elizabeth City is a city in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, Pasquotank County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,629. Elizabeth City is the county seat and largest city of Pasquotank County. It ...
, Edward Snowden first became involved with the United States government upon his enrollment in the
Army Reserves A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve f ...
in the spring of 2004. Snowden claims to have left the program after a few months because he broke his legs in a training accident while a US House of Representatives report claims he had
shin splints A shin splint, also known as medial tibial stress syndrome, is pain along the inside edge of the shinbone (tibia) due to inflammation of tissue in the area. Generally this is between the middle of the lower leg and the ankle. The pain may be dull ...
. He then began working for the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
in 2006 and was stationed with diplomatic cover at the embassy in
Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
in 2007. After nearly three years with the agency, Snowden resigned his position in February 2009 in order to begin working for a contractor with
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
for the NSA. It was at this point in his career that Snowden could sense that his views were changing; "I watched as
Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in ... he NSAare intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them". In 2012, Snowden was reassigned from Yokota base in Japan to the Kunia Operations Center in
Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
, working for Dell before serving as a consultant to
Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 8 ...
. As an "infrastructure analyst" at the National Threat Operations Center, he monitored internet communication. In his own words, the longer he continued to work for the NSA, the more he "worked in secret to resist" his own feelings regarding the various programs in place at the agency. He had served at the Hawaiian base for approximately 15 months prior to leaving the United States and leaking thousands of classified documents. In 2020 Snowden is still living in exile in Russia and conducted two interviews, one with
NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
's
Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 6 ...
segment and one with
WIRED Magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online magazine, online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquar ...
prior to the release of his autobiography Permanent Record on September 17, 2019.


Production

By 2012, Poitras had begun work on the third film in her 9/11 trilogy (''
My Country, My Country ''My Country, My Country'' is a 2006 documentary film about Iraq under U.S. occupation by the filmmaker Laura Poitras. Film Laura Poitras spent over eight months working on her own and for some time following a US Army Civil Affairs team during t ...
'' (2006) and ''
The Oath The Oath may refer to: Books * ''The Oath'' (Wiesel novel), a 1973 novel by Elie Wiesel * ''The Oath'' (Peretti novel), a 1995 novel by Frank E. Peretti * '' The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court'', a 2012 book by Jeffrey Toobin ...
'' (2010)), which she intended to focus broadly on the topic of domestic
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
for which she interviewed Assange, Greenwald, Binney, and Appelbaum. She was first contacted by Snowden in January 2013 after he was unable to establish encrypted communications with Greenwald. She flew to Hong Kong in late May 2013, where, over the course of eight days, she filmed Snowden in his hotel room 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,
BRITDOC Foundation Doc Society (formerly Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and BRITDOC Foundation) is a social entrepreneurship organisation created in 2005. They have supported the production of over 60 films that have won awards . Development Initially supported by UK b ...
and Artificial Eye in the UK and Piffl Media in Germany. The broadcast rights for television were obtained by
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
(United Kingdom),
HBO Documentary Films Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television, premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office busi ...
(USA) and
Norddeutscher Rundfunk Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR; ''Northern German Broadcasting'') is a public broadcasting, public radio and television broadcaster, based in Hamburg. In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR broadcasts for the German states of Lower Saxony, M ...
(Germany). The soundtrack consists of portions of the
Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN and stylized as NIИ, is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland in 1988. Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor was the only permanent member of the band ...
album ''
Ghosts I–IV ''Ghosts I–IV'' is the sixth studio album by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, released by The Null Corporation on March 2, 2008. It was the band's first independent release following their split from longtime label Interscope Recor ...
'', which was released under a
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
license (
BY-NC-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
) in 2008.


Security measures

Poitras took many security precautions related to the film, described by military writer
Peter Maass Peter Maass (born 1960) is an American journalist and author. Life and career Maass was born in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked for ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Wa ...
among others. She moved to Berlin, Germany after being detained repeatedly at border controls when entering the US. She edited the film in Germany after flying directly there from Hong Kong with the Snowden footage, to prevent the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
from showing up with a search warrant for her
hard drives A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...
. All the film footage is kept on encrypted drives with multiple levels of nested protection. 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 " the wake of this year's disclosure, it should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless." Producer 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." The
Film Society of Lincoln Center Film at Lincoln Center, previously known as the Film Society of Lincoln Center until 2019,Aridi, Sara (April 28, 2019).. ''The New York Times''. nytimes.com. Retrieved April 29, 2019. is a film society based in New York City, United States. Fo ...
(which selects films for the New York Film Festival) reported 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, and "tickets for both screenings sold out within just a few hours". The film's ending credits unusually name several
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
projects and security tools, without which "this film would not be possible". The programs named include
Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...
, Tails,
Debian GNU/Linux Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Deb ...
,
Off-the-Record Messaging Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) is a cryptographic protocol that provides encryption for instant messaging conversations. OTR uses a combination of AES symmetric-key algorithm with 128 bits key length, the Diffie–Hellman key exchange with 1536 bi ...
, the
GNU Privacy Guard GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG) is a free-software replacement for Symantec's PGP cryptographic software suite. The software is compliant with RFC 4880, the IETF standards-track specification of OpenPGP. Modern versions of PGP are interoperable ...
,
Truecrypt TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file, or encrypt a partition or the whole storage device (pre-boot authentication). On 28 May ...
, and
SecureDrop SecureDrop is a free software platform for secure communication between journalists and sources (whistleblowers). It was originally designed and developed by Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen under the name ''DeadDrop''. James Dolan also co-created ...
. In October 2014, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
published an informational page about the software credited in the film, and, in November 2015, Poitras was prominently featured in a Tor fund-raising campaign.


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 BFI London Film Festival. The first showing in Germany was on October 27 as part of the
Leipzig Film Festival DOK Leipzig is a documentary film festival that takes place every year in Leipzig, Germany. It is an international film festival for documentary and animated film founded in 1955 under the name "1st All-German Leipzig Festival of Cultural and Doc ...
. The director Laura Poitras was present in
Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...
at the Abaton cinema for a preview on November 4–5 and at the official German premiere at the
Kino International The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protec ...
. Its widest release , was 105 theaters, in the weekend of December 12–18, 2014. It premiered on
Home Box Office Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
on February 23, 2015, the day after the
87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best 2014 in film, films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood, ...
and was subsequently released for streaming on
HBO Go HBO Go is a partly-inactive authenticated video on demand of the pay television service HBO. The service allowed subscribers to HBO via television providers to access its programming on-demand via the HBO website, mobile apps, and digital media p ...
.
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
broadcast it in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
on February 25, 2015 and has released it for view-on-demand through March 4, 2015.


Reception

''Citizenfour'' received widespread critical acclaim. It has an approval rating of 96% on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 145 reviews, with an average score of 8.26/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Part real-life thriller, part sobering examination of 21st century civil liberties, ''Citizenfour'' transcends ideology to offer riveting, must-see cinema."
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
gave the film a score of 88 out of 100 based on 38 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Ronnie Scheib of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' wrote
No amount of familiarity with
whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
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 Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...
, 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.
Spencer Ackerman Spencer Ackerman is an American journalist and writer. Focusing primarily on national security, he began his career at ''The New Republic'' in 2002 before writing for ''Wired'', ''The Guardian'' and ''The Daily Beast''. He won a 2012 National ...
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.
''Time'' magazine rated the film #3 out of its top 10 movies of 2014 and called the film "This Halloween's Scariest Chiller". '' Vanity Fair'' rated it #4 out of its top 10 and ''
Grantland ''Grantland'' was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. ''Grantland'' was named after famed ...
'' rated it #3 of its top 10. Writing for the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'', former Defense Department intelligence analyst Alex Lyda penned a negative review, calling Snowden "more narcissist than patriot".
David Edelstein David Edelstein (born 1959) is a freelance American film critic who has been the principal film critic for ''Slate'' and ''New York'' magazine, among others, and has appeared regularly on NPR's ''Fresh Air'' and ''CBS Sunday Morning'' programs. O ...
reviewed the film mostly favorably, and jocularly advised viewers "don't buy your ticket online or with a credit card". The film site
Fandor Fandor is a film streaming service, dedicated to independent films, documentaries, international titles, and classics, and is a division of the American entertainment company, Cinedigm. Relaunched in 2021, Fandor offers thousands of films, rang ...
has published an extensive survey of other articles and reviews about ''Citizenfour'', updated through December 25, 2014.


Movie's impact

On Sept. 18, 2018, it was ruled by the
European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
that the U.K. spy agency's bulk collection of telecom data violated the
European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
. The Strasburg-based court ruled 5-2 that the practice "failed to safeguard rights to privacy guaranteed under the human rights convention". The complaint was brought on by ten groups including the
ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
,
Privacy International Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its cu ...
,
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
and other civil liberties groups around the world.


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. ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' provided some legal analysis, noting observers opining that Edwards may not have
legal standing Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
to pursue the lawsuit. Edwards also challenged the film's Oscar eligibility on the grounds that Poitras' 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. In February 2015, the filmmakers asked the
U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas The United States District Court for the District of Kansas (in case citations, D. Kan.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Kansas. The Court operates out of the Robert J. Dole United States Courthouse in Kansas Ci ...
to dismiss the lawsuit on standing and jurisdictional grounds, and on
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
grounds citing '' Bartnicki v. Vopper''. Edwards officially dropped the case on April 3, 2015.


Awards and nominations

At
DOK Leipzig DOK Leipzig is a documentary film festival that takes place every year in Leipzig, Germany. It is an international film festival for documentary and animated film founded in 1955 under the name "1st All-German Leipzig Festival of Cultural and Doc ...
2014, when ''Citizenfour'' won the Leipziger Ring award,
Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...
gave a video message to the festival. ''Citizenfour'' won the 2015
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
. It was considered the frontrunner heading into the awards; Brent Lang of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' called for ''Citizenfour'' to receive a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Picture The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...
, with '' THR''s Gregg Kilday discussing its prospects, 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 The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the award ...
(with Greenwald and MacAskill), the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize (with Edward Snowden) the
Carl von Ossietzky Medal The (ILMR) has awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Medal since 1962. The league has honored personalities, initiatives or organizations who have worked with civil courage and outstanding commitment to the realization of human rights annually since 1962 ...
for
human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
(with Greenwald and Snowden), and the Henri Nannen Prize for Efforts for Independence of the Press. ''The Guardian'' and ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' received the
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...
for reporting by Poitras, Greenwald, MacAskill, and
Barton Gellman Barton David Gellman (born 1960) is an American author and journalist known for his reports on September 11 attacks, on Dick Cheney's vice presidency and on the global surveillance disclosure. Beginning in June 2013, he authored ''The Washington P ...
.


See also

*
List of films featuring surveillance There is a significant body of films that feature surveillance as a theme or as a plot arc. These are a number of these films produced in the United States and other countries. List of films References Bibliography * * * * * * * External l ...
* Previous films in trilogy: ''
My Country, My Country ''My Country, My Country'' is a 2006 documentary film about Iraq under U.S. occupation by the filmmaker Laura Poitras. Film Laura Poitras spent over eight months working on her own and for some time following a US Army Civil Affairs team during t ...
'' (2006) and ''
The Oath The Oath may refer to: Books * ''The Oath'' (Wiesel novel), a 1973 novel by Elie Wiesel * ''The Oath'' (Peretti novel), a 1995 novel by Frank E. Peretti * '' The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court'', a 2012 book by Jeffrey Toobin ...
'' (2010) * '' No Place to Hide'', book by
Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...
about the Snowden disclosures, including the events depicted in the film * '' Snowden'', a film directed by
Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...
and starring
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his leading performances ...
that depicts parts of the production of ''Citizenfour''


References


External links

* * * * * * * {{Laura Poitras 2014 films 2014 documentary films American documentary films Articles containing video clips BAFTA winners (films) Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners Documentary films about American politics Edward Snowden Films about security and surveillance Films about whistleblowing Films directed by Laura Poitras Global surveillance HBO documentary films Participant (company) films Films set in Berlin Primetime Emmy Award-winning broadcasts 2010s English-language films 2010s American films