Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rachel Handshaw in Snowden.
The KCET Cinema Series continued its fall season on Tuesday, September 6, with a screening of Snowden at the historic Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The audience had the unusual opportunity to see the Oliver Stone-directed biopic of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden before its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden, Shailene Woodley as Lindsay Miller, Melissa Leo as Laura Poitras and Zachary Quinto as Glenn Greenwald. After the screening, producers Eric Kopeloff and Rob Wilson joined Cinema Series host Pete Hammond for a Q&A session, a portion of which appears below.
The fall season of the KCET Cinema Series is sponsored by the James and Paula Coburn Foundation and runs at the Aero Theatre weekly through October 10.
On why Snowden was made.
Eric Kopeloff: I think this gives you a real understanding of who, what, when, where and how. I think the documentary is almost like an appetizer to this. It got you a taste of what it is, but we took you on a journey, hopefully, and gave you an understanding of who he is and why he made this decision.
On Edward Snowdens involvement in the movie.
EK: None in the beginning. Moritz Borman, who is not here tonight, and myself, it started where we were looking at some books that would be published on Snowden and there was a book that was coming out from the Guardian newspaper called The Snowden Files. We decided to go down the road and speak to them. We did this very, very quietly and made a deal with the Guardian for this book that was going to be published, but also with the Guardian itself as a newspaper. That was step one. Once that was in place, Oliver and Kieran [Fitzgerald] started putting the script together. It wasnt an idea that we thought would even be possible, to have access to Edward Snowden.
Over the years, Oliver has had a relationship with the ACLU and different people at the ACLU. Once we were far along, we reached out to the ACLU and they gave us a connection to... a lawyer who is based in Russia, who is Mr. Snowdens lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena. There was a connection made and Oliver and Kieran went over to meet with the lawyer first and get a sense of him. He also had a piece of material, a fiction-based book that we also decided to acquire. Through this process and talking to them, eventually, the word came back that Snowden would like to meet with Oliver and Kieran.
Pete Hammond: So, Oliver went there and met with Snowden?
EK: Was it the first trip?
Rob Wilson: Second trip.
EK: And Snowden said, Why dont we meet. And they just started talking about it. It was more about, theres a fictional component to this movie. You cant, hes not going to reveal exactly what he did or how he did it or he could be self-incriminating. So he ultimately ended up working with us on a through line for certain components in the movie that you see.
Pete Hammond and Snowden producers Eric Kopeloff and Rob Wilson at the KCET Cinema Series. | Photo: Liz Ohanesian.
On Edward Snowdens appearance in the movie.
EK: That wasnt something that was discussed beforehand. It wasnt something that we engaged with Snowden prior to. We finished the sequences... we were shooting in Munich at the time and, at that point, it was an idea that was starting to be kicked around with Oliver and Moritz [Borman] and myself. At that point, we decided, lets reach out with this idea that we had and we wanted to show him a little bit of the movie and what we were planning on doing and he said, Lets give it a shot.
RW: I was there. Eric was there. We had a very small crew from Germany, including our DP when we found a little location and tried to make it look like a house or an apartment or a home. We had a wonderful day there.
EK: Its not like you pick up the phone and call him and say, hey, were going to meet over here, youre going to come and were going to shoot you. It was pretty complex.
PH: You have to deal with the Russian government, probably on all of this.
EK: Not the government.
PH: Really?
EK: No, not actually at all. Hes a guest of the government and he lives freely over in Moscow. I dont know the particulars of how his movement works. Does he wear a baseball cap and sunglasses when he goes out? Its more about, we had to coordinate with him, usually through the attorney, so that we could find a location. We set everything up and at that point, theres a time where we would go and he shows up, we chatted. We do our thing. We had lunch, etc. We keep shooting and then he finishes and he leaves and then we pack up and get out of there.
On Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
EK: Joe was, truthfully, Olivers first choice. When he was writing the movie, he just felt very strongly that Joe would be the guy.
I think he just watched a series of his films and knew him as an actor and he just felt that he was, I dont think it was the political component. I think he just felt that he could do this part...
The first thing we did after we had a script and Oliver felt that was the direction we were going to go, we went to Joe and then built everything for Joe.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in Snowden.
--
--
On Lindsay Mills, Snowdens girlfriend, as a character in the film.
EK: I think it definitely was in the writing process. As we did research about Mr. Snowden, you realize that theres a human side, a side of his relationship with her and how she really did not know anything. He picked up and left. It was definitely an important through line and it was a situation with Joe -- we had Joe -- and Shailene [Woodley], she heard about the project and she passionately reached out to us. I think one or two letters to Oliver. Her agents were very persistent and really reached out, so this was something that she very much wanted to do.
On protecting th
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rachel Handshaw in Snowden. 
