Edward Snowden’s story seems ready-made for a Hollywood thriller, but Hollywood hasn’t jumped on the story just yet. After all, the story is still unfolding. But a group of amateurs have already made a short film about Snowden and his decision to leak the documents on the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.
The video is called [verax], which is a Latin term for ‘truth-teller.’ According to EW, it is also the codename Snowden used when he was communicating with journalists. The video is only five minutes and was uploaded on June 25, when Snowden was on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow.
According to CNN, the video was made by videographer Edwin Lee and a group of friends living in Hong Kong. They decided to focus on the effect Snowden had on the city. “We were so intrigued as to why Snowden came to Hong Kong,” Lee told CNN. “All of us love Hong Kong to death; we all call Hong Kong home.”
Even though the video was made together quickly and on a $540 budget, Lee and his friends were able to make a complicated video that featured the ‘shaky-camera’ style and even footage shot in the hotel where snowden filmed his interview with The Guardian.
“Yes the film was about Snowden, but he wasn't featured the most prominently,” Lee told CNN. “He's mostly the catalyst [of events] affecting all these different people around him; it's more about the vignettes.” He added that the video is split between focus on Hong Kong and Snowden.
As for the real Snowden, he is still holed up in the Moscow airport. According to NBC News, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that, “If he likes to stay here there is one condition: he should cease his work aimed at damaging our American partners. No matter how strange it will sound from me.”
Snowden’s latest information leak revealed to Germany’s Der Spiegel that the U.S. had bugged European Union offices.
image: YouTube