KEIGHLEY Film Club will screen the acclaimed documentary Citizenfour on June 21.

The film, which focuses on Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal, will be screened at the Picture House cinema, North Street, at 8pm.

Laura Poitras’s film, shot in cinéma vérité style, was released last year and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at this year's Oscars.

Citizenfour is described as a real-life thriller, unfolding by the minute, giving audiences unprecedented access to filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald’s encounters with spying whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong.

The cameras were running as Snowden handed over classified documents providing evidence of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions of privacy by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name “Citizenfour”, in January 2013.

He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated.

When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film.

The film-makers say that Citizenfour places the audience in the room with Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden as they attempt to manage the media storm raging outside, forced to make quick decisions that would impact their lives and all of those around them.

A spokesman said: “Citizenfour not only shows you the dangers of governmental surveillance – it makes you feel them.

“After seeing the film, you will never think the same way about your phone, e-mail, credit card, web browser, or profile, ever again.”

Call 07794 371160 or 01535 047048 for further information about the Keighley Film Club screening.