A film about the former CIA officer Edward Snowden - 'Citizenfour' in the category Best Documentary - has won the Oscar for best documentary.
The Academy Awards were taking place in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The film director Laura Poitras, accepting the award, thanked Snowden for his bravery. In January 2013 Poitras received the first encrypted e-mail from a certain 'Citizen four', who was ready to reveal the secrets of the NSA surveillance programs and other agencies. She and New York Times journalist Glenn Greenwald went to Hong Kong to meet with this man in June 2013, who turned out to be Snowden. Poitras has repeatedly met with the whistleblower, which resulted in this documentary consisting of his interviews.
Snowden in June 2013 passed a series of secret materials about the programs of surveillance of US intelligence and the UK on the internet to the Washington Post and the Guardian. Then he flew to Hong Kong, and from June 23, 2013 was in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Currently Snowden is in Russia. In the US, he is accused of intentional transmission of sensitive data to the security services of other countries and a number of other crimes, Snowden faces up to 10 years in prison on each charge.
