(MENAFN- Arab Times) NEW YORK Oct 11 (Agencies): With an uncommon view of history in action a new documentary captures Edward Snowden's leak of National Security Agency documents as it unfolded in a Hong Kong hotel room. Laura Poitras' highly anticipated documentary 'Citizenfour' premiered Friday night at the New York Film Festival. The film presents a remarkably intimate portrait of Snowden including his first meetings with the journalists with whom he shared thousands of documents revealing the collection of Americans' phone and email records.
Initially communicating under the alias 'citizenfour' Snowden reached out to Poitras a hybrid journalist-documentarian and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. The film shows their first meeting with Snowden and the days that followed as his revelations made international news. From the beginning Snowden is seen as highly aware that such a leak would mean sacrificing his own freedom. 'I already know how this will end for me' he says. 'And I accept the risk.' Snowden was charged with three felonies under the Espionage Act: unauthorized communication of national defense information theft of government property and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person. He is currently living in asylum in Russia where he fled from Hong Kong with the aid of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. Poitras said she showed the film to Snowden two or three weeks ago during which she shot footage (used in the film) of Snowden. Members of Snowden's family attended the screening which was received with an emotional standing ovation. His father Lonnie Snowden told the crowd: 'The truth is coming and it cannot be stopped.' 'Citizenfour' which the Weinstein Co's boutique label Radius will release Oct 24 had been shrouded in mystery. For fear of having her footage seized Poitras edited the film in Berlin. She and Greenwald returned to the United States earlier this year only after sharing the Pulitzer Prize for public service given to The Washington Post and The Guardian for the NSA revelations. Controversial 'Citizenfour' doesn't aim to be an unbiased documentary about a controversial figure but rather seeks to depict the stealth buildup of government surveillance in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001 and the people who have fought to uncover it. 'This was a film about people who take risks and come forward' Poitras said after the screening. Snowden a former contractor for the NSA comes across as calm intelligent and deliberate. There are glimpses of paranoia. After room service calls Snowden's hotel room he unplugs the phone. A fire alarm momentarily prompts his concern. And when he enters passwords on his laptop Snowden covers himself with a red blanket. Throughout the process Snowden speaks about not hiding or 'skulking around' instead certain of himself as a whistleblower ready to take sole responsibility for the leak. 'Put the target right on my back' he tells the filmmakers. 'So much has been said about Edward Snowden: a lot of it bad but a lot of it really good' Greenwald said after the film. 'I felt like this was really the first time that people could see who he really is in an unmediated way.' Snowden the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who blew the whistle on the US government's mass surveillance programs has been reunited in Russia with his long-time girlfriend according to a new documentary shown on Friday. Lindsay Mills a dancer who was living with Snowden when he left Hawaii for Hong Kong in May 2013 joined him in Moscow in July 2014 the documentary disclosed. The two are filmed cooking together in an apartment in Moscow where Snowden 31 has been living since he was given temporary asylum and later a three-year residency permit. Mills had remained silent and her whereabouts were largely unknown after Snowden's release of tens of thousands of classified US intelligence documents in 2013. Encounters Citizenfour gives a fly-on-the wall account of Snowden's tense days in a Hong Kong hotel and his encounters with journalists from the Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper as they prepared to divulge details of NSA programs that gathered data from the Internet activities and the phones of millions of ordinary Americans and dozens of world leaders. Marketed as a 'real-life thriller' it is the first of several major films in the works about Snowden who is wanted by the United States on charges brought under the Espionage Act. 'This was a film we had to make as privately and secretly as we could' Poitras said after the screening which received thunderous applause from an audience that included Snowden's father and other family members. 'We very much wanted to communicate in this film that (it)was about people who take risks and come forward at huge personal sacrifice' added Poitras who says she has been stopped and questioned when entering the US numerous times in the past 10 years. She now lives in Berlin. Snowden's revelations sparked a global debate on the limits of privacy versus the needs of national security and he is viewed either as a traitor or a hero who spoke up for civil liberties. Journalist Glenn Greenwald who along with Poitras was Snowden's first points of contact with the media said he hoped that 'Citizenfour' would allow the public to form their own opinion about the man and his motives. 'So much has been said about Ed Snowden a lot of it bad but a lot of it really good. I felt like this was really the first time that people got to see who he really is so that they could make up their own mind. 'I always felt ... that the most powerful part of the story was not going to be the documents and the revelations but the power of the story and the acts of this very kind of ordinary young man who decided very consciously to sacrifice his whole life for a political principle' Greenwald said on Friday. Poitras said she had shown the documentary to Snowden on a trip to Russia about three weeks ago when the brief scenes with his girlfriend were filmed. The documentary will open in US movie theaters on Oct 24.
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