CITIZENFOUR – Special screening with Q & A panel on mass surveillance

Join Amnesty International Canada and Amnesty Concordia for this special screening of CITIZENFOUR, the 2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras, concerning Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. Part real-life thriller, part sobering examination of 21st century civil liberties, CITIZENFOUR transcends ideology to offer riveting, must-see cinema.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A panel of experts on mass surveillance, human rights and security in the digital age. The venue is wheelchair accessible.
 

Panel Speakers

• Hilary Homes - Amnesty International's Campaigner on Surveillance, Security & Human Rights, MENA, International Justice and Arms Trade.
• Gabriella Coleman - anthropologist, academic and author whose work focuses on hacker culture and online activism (particularly Anonymous). She holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University.
• Dr. Evan Light - creator of the Portable Snowden Surveillance Archive, FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mobile Media Lab of Concordia University and part of Performigrations, a touring EU-funded interactive art exhibit.
• Dominique Peschard - President of la Ligue des Droits et Libertés, member of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring group. A frequent speaker on the proliferation of surveillance and control mechanisms, he drafted and presented papers on the national identity card project at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa and on biometrics at the Commission de l’Éthique de la Science et de la Technologie, and presided over the Colloquium, "On nous fiche, ne nous en fichons pas!" in Montreal.

About the movie

Director: Laura Poitras / USA / 2015 / English
Stars: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, William Binney

Synopsis

In January 2013, Laura Poitras started receiving anonymous encrypted e-mails from "CITIZENFOUR," who claimed to have evidence of illegal covert surveillance programs run by the NSA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies worldwide. Five months later, she and reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The resulting film is history unfolding before our eyes.

CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name “CITIZENFOUR,” in January 2013. He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated. When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film.

CITIZENFOUR places you in the room with Poitras, Greenwald, and Snowden as they attempt to manage the media storm raging outside, forced to make quick decisions that will impact their lives and all of those around them.

CITIZENFOUR not only shows you the dangers of governmental surveillance—it makes you feel them. After seeing the film, you will never think the same way about your phone, email, credit card, web browser, or profile, ever again.