Citizenfour chronicles the eight days Edward Snowden spent in a Hong Kong hotel room with filmmaker Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald, where Snowden blew the whistle on the United States’ secret data-collection programs and the complicity of foreign governments in those efforts. If that sounds dull, it isn’t. A moment when Snowden takes precautions to avoid having his image captured by a laptop’s webcam, and Greenwald slowly realizes the implications of that action, is as unnerving as any contemporary espionage thriller.
The other triumph of Poitras’s documentary is that it gives Snowden back his humanity. No cartoon traitor or fanatic, he’s a soft-spoken, thoughtful and profoundly intelligent young man – a conscientious objector in the face of Orwellian insanity. We are all in his debt.
– Norm Wilner, NOW Toronto
FREE screening presented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Film will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A sesson
