“Citizenfour,” a sobering documentary and examination of 21st century civil liberties, opens Dec. 5 at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.

The documentary, directed by Laura Poitras, focuses on Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal, but it details how the filmmaker became one of the first reporters to have been contacted by Edward Snowden as the infamous whistleblower prepared to turn over materials that would reveal the extent of the NSA’s surveillance around the world.

In January 2013, Poitras, who is the recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Genius Fellowship and co-recipient of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, was several years into making a film about surveillance in the post-9/11 era when she started receiving encrypted e-mails from someone identifying himself as “citizen four.”

In June 2013, she and Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely sui generis in the history of cinema.

“Birdman,” starring Michael Keaton, will also be playing at the Ross.

The movie, which subtitle is “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” is a black comedy that tells the story of an actor, Keaton, who is famous for portraying an iconic superhero as he struggles to mount a Broadway play. In the days leading up to opening night, he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself.

Both films are rated R and will show through Dec. 18.

For more information, go to https://theross.org/ or call 402-472-5353.