Filming begins on NSA whistleblower drama starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden documentary Citizenfour is favourite to win Oscar

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone’s big-screen dramatisation of Edward Snowden’s mass surveillance revelations will be released on 25 December, distributor Open Road Films said on Friday.

Snowden will star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the NSA whistleblower who leaked details of US and British surveillance and electronic monitoring programs.

Filming has begun in Munich and will move to other locations before its expected completion in May.

Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson will also star in the film, adapted from two books, The Snowden Files, by Guardian journalist Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s lawyer.

Snowden’s disclosures were documented in film-maker Laura Poitras’s Citizenfour, which was released last year and is the favourite to win the best documentary Oscar on Sunday.

The 31-year-old fled to Hong Kong before documents revealing the surveillance programs were published. He now lives in Russia.