Citizenfour (Laura Poitras, 2014): Germany

Reviewed by Karin Eriksson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015.

When I was sitting in the theater, waiting for the movie to start, a man came out and presented it. He jokingly said that we probably shouldn’t let anyone know that we were there and saw it. Behind every joke there’s the truth.

Citizenfour is a documentary about Edward Snowden and what he discovered when he was working for the NSA. In the documentary, we follow the progress of getting the information that Snowden possess out to the public. It starts with a journalist, Laura Poitras. She gets contacted by email by an anonymous person through encrypted emails. After many months of contact the agree to meet in person. She brings Glenn Greenwald with her. When they hear what Snowden has to say, they immediately starts reporting and get the information out to as many as possible.

This movie was extremely interesting and very frightening. I really respect Laura, Glenn and Edward for doing this. It can not have been easy. Laura talked about that she has been targeted by the US government and cannot bring her film material over the US border because she is afraid that it will be confiscated so she had to have back ups in other countries, this movie for example is made in Germany. I recommend that every one sees this movie. It is very informative and I believe that everyone has the right to know what is going on in their lives.