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(The latter would eventually be freed, and his conviction overturned in 2012.)
His revelations about NSA spying would shake the world, revealing the mind-boggling extent of the U.S. surveillance apparatus.
Poitrass 2014 film about Snowden,Citizenfour, would go on to win a Best Documentary Oscar.
The catastrophic disregard for human life.
Its a bit traumatizing.
Im still trying to put words around it, but this was so entirely predictable.
The cost of lives, the financial cost for what?
And were less safe.
Weve made more enemies.
Weve gone around the world with secret prisons and black sites.
Guantanamo Bay prison is still open.
It just makes me all the more wish that there was some accountability, which weve never had.
I think people should be held accountable for this level of destruction.
Its really hard to begin to comprehend and process the level of tragedy.
Obviously, they should have withdrawn.
The U.S. should have withdrawn in the winter of 2001, 20 years ago.
And in the process of that, we just created generations of destruction and enemies.
Your work as a feature documentarian largely coincides with the post-9/11 era.
Its not long after the U.S. invasion of Iraq that you start working onMy Country, My Country.
What prompted you to make these films?Yep.
The first one is about the occupation of Iraq.
From my perspective as a documentary filmmaker, what I was seeing was just a march towards this catastrophe.
Wed look at the front page of the news.
The lives are recognized as human beings.
And then youll have the occupation of Iraq and people dying in mass numbers.
Theres just like another suicide bombing, and its just body counts.
Theres never a name, theres never a person, theres nothing.
I just felt that needed to be documented, and thats why I went to Iraq.
I thought certain things would end that the war in Afghanistan would end, that Guantanamo would end.
I was profoundly disturbed and outraged when they announced the creation of Guantanamo in 2002.
And here we are.
Guantanamo Bay is still open and there are still people there.
And its shameful that there isnt more outrage and press coverage about that.
The thing thats so terrifying is what lessons are we ever going to learn from this?
I recently re-watched all three of these films, as well asRisk, the film you made afterCitizenfour.
Maybe that leads to an openness.
I was entirely cynical that elections in Iraq could ever be legitimate under an occupation.
But Iraqis were willing to put their lives on the line.
I dont want to go in with predetermined ideas.
Id rather that as the films unfolded, theyd teach me something.
There is a journey in that.
It seems like theres a lot of pressure now to have the thesis spelled out beforehand.
Ill be honest with you, funders are often risk-averse.
It was easier to get funding after I had returned and not before I went.
I had some initial funding, but not the full funding.
There are different methods of working.
I do think that method of working is still possible.
But you better work with people who are going to trust you to tell the story.
Rather, Im interested in interrogating power, and particularly American power.
Thats very, very dangerous.
So hopefully the documentary community will continue to ask these questions.
And I think funders should be looking for local filmmakers, and not just relying on outsiders.
But I thought,Well, clearly people are going to be held accountable.
Clearly you cant have the torture photographs be public and nobody being held accountable.
I was very interested inCitizenfourwith bringing it home.
I wanted to tell that story.
For a long time I wasnt sure how Id ever tell that story.
This was before Edward Snowden contacted me.
(I actually did end up doing that later.)
But I felt it was really hot button to make this it was crucial.
I mean, dont we need to understand why were hated?
Isnt that one of the most important things we can ask?
I really thought it wouldnt get funded.
Sundance and a lot of organizations supported it, which was risky for them.
