2016 #DocImpact Graffiti art by Victor Ving CELEBRATING THE DOCUMENTARY FILMS THAT HAVE MADE THE GREATEST IMPACT ON SOCIETY 7 Impact Award 2016 Welcome 8 The Doc Impact Award 2016 is presented by: Welcome Impact Award Impact Award HOT DANG We are so proud to share with you the story of the five remarkable winners of the Doc Impact Award 2016. To qualify for the Doc Impact Award, excellence in filmmaking is not enough. Doc Impact Award films must also have created significant and measurable social impact. Since 2011 this annual prize has been celebrating the power of film as a driver of change. Our aim: —To help build new fans for the films —Create new partners for the campaigns —To share best practice for the whole community Read on to learn about the campaign strategy & impact achievements for CITIZENFOUR. To read all five case studies and see previous winners go to www.docimpactaward.org and follow the conversation online at #docimpact 9 CITIZENFOUR The Film 10 Food Chains Food Exposing the reality of mass surveillance and its consequences for personal WINNER: privacy and public policy. CITIZENFOUR 11 CITIZENFOUR The Film 12 Critical Acclaim “ A primal political fable for the Food Chains Food CITIZENFOUR digital age, a real- time tableau of The Film the confrontation CITIZENFOUR is a real life thriller, between the unfolding by the minute, giving audiences individual and unprecedented access to encounters with the state.” Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he — New York Times hands over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA). The film places you in the room as director Laura Poitras and reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill meet Edward Snowden for the first time, having communicated securely for a number of months. As top secret information is revealed to the trio, they are forced to make quick decisions that will impact their lives and those around them, whilst attempting to manage the media storm picking up outside. 87TH ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY 2014 CITIZENFOUR explores the high-risk choices individuals make, their repercussions and why they choose to act in a particular way. When faced with seemingly all-powerful and pervasive state power in the form of mass surveillance, how BAFTA AWARDS FOR BEST do ordinary citizens and those on the inside, including NSA DOCUMENTARY 2014 workers, resist? And what are the consequences of increased surveillance on our political community, our political values and the world around us? It’s a film that captures history in 2014 DIRECTOR’S GUILD the making and tackles issues with implications for many OF AMERICA FOR OUTSTANDING The NSA. years to come. DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT Photo by Trevor Paglen IN DOCUMENTARY 13 CITIZENFOUR The Campaign 14 THE CAMPAIGN GCHQ satellites in Bude, England. Photo: Trevor Paglen 15 CITIZENFOUR The Campaign 16 This was the catalyst for an programs thus exposing the depth went public, it was the end of CONTEXT anonymous member of the and breadth of U.S. government their time together and indeed intelligence community to infiltration into both its domestic as the media circus was triggered, contact Poitras using the citizens’ lives and those in the Snowden fled and went into CITIZENFOUR is Laura Poitras’ last film in her post- rubric “CITIZENFOUR”. After international community. As they hiding. As Poitras describes: The Campaign The 9/11 Trilogy. It is a unique work of visual journalism, communicating through encrypted reported on Snowden’s process “We were all surprised at how emails for five months, she from the hotel room, Poitras much attention it was getting. created whilst Poitras continued to work in combination believed the source was credible documented the unfolding Our work was very focused, and with other storytelling mediums, embracing both short and wanted to go public with a story with her camera. we were paying attention to that, film and traditional newsprint. By the time CITIZENFOUR trove of secret documents about but we could see on TV that it how the United States had built The video recorded with Snowden was taking off. We were in this was released, her work had already started a global a massive surveillance apparatus on June 6th 2013 and published on closed circle, and around us we conversation about mass surveillance which the film to spy on Americans and people the Guardian website on June 9th, knew that reverberations were across the globe. It was just a where he explained his motivation happening, and they could be pushed wider and deeper. matter of time... as a whistleblower became seen and they could be felt.” headline news around the world. Her inter-disciplinary work continues. In 2016, the Whitney Museum of In May 2013, Laura and The impact of these revelations American Art in New York debuted Poitras’ first solo museum exhibition, reporter Glenn Greenwald These and other articles appeared are continuing to reverberate which explores the themes of her post-9/11 Trilogy and expands her cinematic travelled to Hong Kong to while they were still in the process across nearly all aspects of practice into a series of installations and immersive media environments. meet the man who turned of filming Snowden, creating news civil society: government, out to be Edward Snowden. together, then watching it spread. business, media, public opinion, Later commenting on record Knowing that once the stories and academia. Part one of the post-9/11 Trilogy, security screenings at U.S. and of his motivation for contacting My Country, My Country (2006), overseas airports on more than Poitras, Snowden said, about the U.S. occupation 50 occasions. “She had demonstrated the of Iraq, was nominated for courage, personal experience an Academy Award. Part two, Partially as a result of her own and skill needed to handle what The Oath (2010), focused experience as a target, she became is probably the most dangerous on Guantanamo and the war interested in surveillance and how assignment any journalist can on terror, and was nominated the war on terror was unfolding in be given — reporting on the secret for two Emmy awards. the domestic arena. An off-shoot misdeeds of the most powerful of the fledgling featured government in the world — After returning to the United States documentary was the 2012 New making her an obvious choice.” from Iraq and filming My Country, York Times Op-Doc The Program, My Country, Poitras was detained at a short film about NSA Laura, Glenn and Guardian security the U.S. border every time she whistleblower William Binney. correspondent Ewen MacAskill travelled. Between 2006 and 2012, He described “Stellarwind,” spent eight days in Snowden’s she was searched, questioned, and a top-secret domestic spying hotel room while he translated often subjected to hours-long program begun after 9/11. documents from NSA surveillance 17 CITIZENFOUR The Campaign 18 The campaign was first built The film was released 16 months themselves. The film’s success THE CAMPAIGN around the widest and noisiest after the first news stories on brought different audiences to possible release of a hotly- Snowden (many co-authored the subject, different journalists anticipated film as a means by Laura herself) had broken. and publications to the story to create and then leverage a After a wave of coverage and and new high profile supporters The Campaign The cultural moment. The film team commentary all around the world, on board. made a set of decisions about it gave audiences the opportunity distribution (major distributor, to engage more profoundly with “ The action is perilously big festival premiere, immediate the issues and importantly, to real and the camera isn’t only theatrical) that were designed experience whistleblowers like capturing the historical event to create high visibility in Snowden and others like Bill it’s part of the making of it.” the entertainment press, film Binney directly and assess their — industry and elite cultural circles. characters and motives for Washington Post How the Campaign Worked and GCHQ was revealed in CITIZENFOUR demonstrated the Snowden papers as the how two leading democracies, closest allied agency to the the United States and the NSA. Germany is of strategic United Kingdom, are violating importance as the leading political the fundamental rights of power in the European Union. people across the globe. The Partly as a result of reforms and film was a crucial tool in helping public debate relating to the civil society and politicians experience of the Stasi and understand the scale of the government spying on citizens, challenge, allowing them to Germany has strong press seek a solution to the problem freedom and anti-surveillance of unchecked mass surveillance. laws, which was one reason why Laura moved to Berlin to make The film’s engagement campaign her film. The United States, Britain targeted the United States, Britain, and Germany are also the three and Germany. Britain is a co-producers an lead financers traditional US ally in foreign policy, of the film. 19 CITIZENFOUR The Campaign 20 Whilst the revelations had come audiences undecided but as a bombshell to many parts of persuadable on Snowden’s society, for many human rights actions and on the larger debate activists and surveillance about mass surveillance. campaigners, they finally had the The Campaign The evidence in the papers and the In the UK, the Guardian had tool, in the film itself, that they led the initial coverage of needed to make headway. Snowden’s revelations with other papers and broadcasters taking Different Countries, a backseat, partly due to the Different Campaigns government issuance of a DA There was a unified strategy in the notice (an official request to three key territories, USA, UK and news editors not to publish or Germany simultaneously: starting broadcast items on specified with a major, high profile festival subjects for reasons of national premiere in each country in security) asking for press October 2014 (New York Film restraint.