Oscars 2015: Edward Snowden film Citizenfour wins Best Documentary Feature

The film topped Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth and Virunga

Payton Guion
Sunday 22 February 2015 23:51 EST
Comments
(Getty Images)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Citizenfour won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the 2015 Academy Awards for its look at whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed US intelligence organisation National Security Agency’s illegal surveillance activities.

The film’s director, Laura Poitras, was in the Hong Kong hotel room with Snowden when he handed over the secret documents he had obtained working as a contractor for the NSA to a pair of journalists, who then blew open the story and brought intense criticism of the US government from all over the world.

Citizenfour beat out Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth and Virunga to claim the golden statue.

Read more: Oscars 2015 live blog
Oscars 2015 predictions in full
The best Oscars acceptance speeches of all time
A peek inside the ridiculous Oscars goodie bags

Snowden emailed Poitras in January 2013 calling himself Citizen Four. Poitras met Snowden in Honk Kong and recorded their meetings, which served as the basis of the film.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in