Documentary films don’t normally get the same exposure as Hollywood blockbusters, but one night a year, an exceptional feature length documentary has a chance to access a new global audience and consciousness. This year, Laura Poitras’ enthralling account of how Edward Snowden lifted the lid on widespread electronic surveillance, Citizenfour, is the hot favorite to pick up the Oscar for best feature length documentary.
Previous Oscar wins for An Inconvenient Truth and Bowling for Columbine amplified their messages, influencing a wider social sphere than its original audience. Citizenfour could be the right movie, at the right time, to really make people think twice about how they communicate online and what they do with their data.
In a recent article in the Guardian, Poitras stated that she believed that “more and more people can and should be using encryption for their basic communications.” If she wins on Sunday night, she may choose to use the acceptance speech as a platform to urge people to become more secure by using encrypted services – it might be the wakeup call for the sleeping surveilled masses.
We’ll all be rooting for Laura and co. on Sunday night. After all, the film credited open privacy software projects as essential to its production – as an open software company we feel a little indebted.