It was only a matter of time before someone made a movie out of Edward Snowden’s dramatic story.

Some speedy amateur filmmakers in Hong Kong have beaten Hollywood to the task.

“Verax” is a five-minute thriller that imagines the conversations among CIA analysts, Chinese authorities and Hong Kong newspaper staffers in the days after the National Security Agency leaker fled to the city earlier this month.

With sweeping views of Hong Kong skyscrapers, shots inside the Mira Hotel where Snowden hid out and a thrumming, “Social Network"-like electronic music soundtrack, the movie feels quite polished for an insta-film, though the actors’ leaden delivery sometimes gives their neophyte status away.


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Directed by Jeff Floro, Edwin Lee, Shawn Tse and Marcus Tsui and shot over three days in June when Snowden was still hiding out in Hong Kong, “Verax” takes its title from the code name Snowden gave himself.

“We made this for fun and for the love of filmmaking,” the filmmakers said in a statement on YouTube. “We had no commercial or political motives.”

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