The first glimpse the world had of Edward Snowden was in a short video in a dark Hong Kong hotel room. But film-maker Laura Poitras’ journey with the NSA whistleblower began much earlier.

Her film Citizenfour, which opens in Australia after winning best documentary at the Baftas, captures both Edward Snowden’s story and the story of the wide-ranging surveillance network that has burgeoned in the decade since 9/11. Poitras spoke to Guardian Australia about Snowden, his revelations and the possibility of further stories about Australia’s role in intelligence-gathering and surveillance.

Your film captures the impact of Snowden’s disclosures on the world but also presents a very personal portrait of Snowden and others who have spoken out about these issues. What have the past 18 months shown you about what it means to be a whistleblower?

When I think about Citizenfour, it’s clearly about the issue of NSA and surveillance and the dangers of that, but it’s a lot more about people who take a stance and make sacrifices when they see something they think is wrong and speak out. Why did [Snowden] do what he did? And how did he do it? I’m fascinated by that. I’m fascinated by those types of stories.

In all of my films there are broad themes, in this case surveillance and post-9/11 America, but I’m very much interested in individuals. So not just Snowden but Glenn [Greenwald, the journalist who scooped the NSA story]. In 2011, I went to Rio because I was fascinated that there was someone who was doing the kind of adversarial reporting so outside of the mainstream – so off the grid. I went down there to document what he was doing because I wanted to understand it.

It’s a portrait of people who are coming forward in response to some of the policies post 9/11 and saying: you know that these are wrong, they’re morally wrong and they’re legally wrong, and we’re taking a stance.

When you were in the Hong Kong hotel room discussing Snowden’s motives for coming forward, he raised concerns about the story and the personality-driven culture of news reporting. Were you ever concerned your story would become more about him, distracting from the disclosures themselves?

In terms of him not wanting to be the story, that was his decision. It wasn’t something we ever tried to talk him into. Of course, then I wanted to ask why he made the decision.

Soon after the meeting in Hong Kong he really went underground. He wanted to minimise the narrative becoming about him. And he did his best but in the circumstances, it was never going to happen – that he would not be written about or discussed by the government or other media.

I felt very confident that the kind of documentary work I do wouldn’t contribute to the facile mainstream fascination with personalities. I believe my work can hopefully dig a little deeper than that. But I did have to convince him of meeting face-to-face. At first he told me he was planning on revealing his name, but he didn’t necessarily want to meet – he felt that there were certain risks of meeting.

Edward Snowden in Moscow, filmed by Laura Poitras in her documentary Citizen Four.

Littered through the NSA material is a smaller amount of material about Australia’s role in surveillance. What do you think of the role that Australia and other Five Eyes nations play – is it a passive participant or a more active player?

There’s going to be more reporting about Australia so I don’t want to talk about it in any specifics. Clearly it’s the US and the UK that are taking a lead in this but I think Australia is very much engaging and participating and using [its] geographic location to help facilitate a lot of the activities. There hasn’t been a good enough understanding about how Australia fits into the picture – it’s one of the big things we have to do.

Throughout the film there are references to the encryption technology you’ve used: Tails and PGP and other tools. They can be difficult to use. How do we get to a point where more people understand how to use this technology?

More and more people can and should be using encryption for their basic communications. On the internet, it’s part of the architecture. When you log into your bank you’re doing it over an encrypted line even if you don’t understand it.

What we’re going to see is applications that allow encryption to be used in a way that’s less of a burden on the user. The good news from the Snowden advice that we’ve used is that if encryption is used correctly it still works. We’ve also learned there are people in the free software movement that have built tools everyone can use. We don’t need to wait for governments to change the policy.

Towards the end of Citizenfour there’s this really powerful moment – what’s described as a “new submission” or new source, and a sense there’s a lot more to come. Has the past 18 months disrupted existing models of journalism?

The way this story unfolded was unorthodox, it being Glenn and I who were the ones who were approached instead of the New York Times, and I think that has probably been healthy for journalism, particularly in the US context.

In the US there’s been some antagonism in some parts towards Glenn, but I think there’s a recognition of the value of this reporting and the value of defending the first amendment. This is essential work and holding governments accountable are what journalists should be doing.



• Citizenfour will screen at select cinemas around Australia from 12 February