Citizenfour, a movie about Edward Snowden’s controversial revelations about the US’s National Security Agency, has won an Oscar for Best Documentary.
The award goes to director Laura Poitras, producer Dirk Wilutzky and editor Mathilde Bonnefoy. Poitras is the journalist who was first contacted by Snowden back in 2013 and who, with the help of her longtime collaborator Glenn Greenwald, published Snowden’s information – Citizenfour is the pseudonym he used in their initial discussions.
The Guardian writes that as part of Poitras’s acceptance speech, she said “The disclosures of Edward Snowden don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret we lose the power to control and govern ourselves.” Poitras also thanked Snowden for his “sacrifices”, and added: “I share this award with Glenn Greenwald and the many other journalists who are taking risks to expose the truth.”
Snowden himself responded to the news with the following:
“When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I’m grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honour and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.”
Interested? If you’d like to read a review of the movie, which came out in October last year, check out Godfrey Cheshire‘s five-star write-up on RogerEbert.com of what he calls “the movie of the century (to date)”.
[Source – The Guardian, Image – Laura Poitras/ Praxis Films [CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons]
