Snowden filmmaker Poitras says Hong Kong meeting turned life into a spy novel
Oscar-nominated director of film on US whistle-blower recalls tense city meeting, and says government snooping is 'out of control'
The Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind a fly-on-the-wall documentary on Edward Snowden has described the time she spent with the American whistle-blower in Hong Kong in 2013 as the most risky period of the saga.
Laura Poitras, who is in the running for Best Documentary honours with her film Citizenfour, said her life turned into a spy novel the moment she flew from the United States to Hong Kong with journalist Glenn Greenwald to meet the former US National Security Agency contractor.
Snowden first met Poitras and Greenwald at the Mira Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui in June 2013 and revealed the massive scope of US intelligence surveillance.
That first meeting was shrouded in secrecy and subterfuge, with Snowden carrying a Rubik's cube to identify himself.
"I took some extreme precautions," Poitras said. "I didn't carry a cellphone for a year after I started reporting because I didn't want it to start broadcasting my location," she told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles.
It was this period that is recounted in Citizenfour, a title that refers to the pseudonym Snowden used when he contacted her.
When Snowden was in hiding in Hong Kong, he shared classified documents with the South China Morning Post that revealed that US spies were hacking Hong Kong and mainland targets.