The Loft Cinema will host a screening of the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, the 2014 film concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal, at 7:30 p.m., March 24. The film will be followed by an onstage discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His most recent book, No Place to Hide, is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world.

In January 2013, filmmaker Laura Poitras started receiving encrypted e-mails from someone identifying himself as “citizen four”, who was ready to blow the whistle on the massive covert surveillance programs run by the NSA and other intelligence agencies.

She and reporter Greenwald flew to Hong Kong in June 2013 for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Snowden. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely sui generis in the history of cinema: a 100 percent real-life thriller unfolding minute by minute before our eyes. Poitras is a masterful storyteller. She compresses the many days of questioning, waiting, confirming, watching the world’s reaction and agonizing over the next move, into both a great character study of Snowden and a narrative that will leave viewers on the edge of their seats.

Location: 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., Tucson. For more information,call 520-795-0844, email [email protected] or visit LoftCinema.org.
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