Fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum by Moscow after revealing the extent of US government surveillance, has been joined by his American girlfriend in Russia.
A near two-hour documentary - Citizenfour by Laura Poitras - paints an intimate portrait of Snowden holed up in a Hong Kong hotel as he blows the whistle on National Security Agency dealings and then plots his escape.
The film says Snowden's long-time partner Lindsay Mills joined him in Moscow in July.
A short segment shows her preparing dinner with Mr Snowden in a wood-panelled kitchen, but the couple's conversation is not recorded and she is not interviewed.
Earlier in the documentary, Mr Snowden is shown breaking the news that he would not be back anytime soon after agents turn up at their home in Hawaii.
"It's a tough situation," he says - close to tears on the bed in his hotel room - of telling Mills that he "may not be coming back."
"She has no idea (what) I'm doing," he says.
He says he feels "badly" about simply disappearing while she was on vacation but said he did it to protect her.
Much of the film was recorded on the first visit to Hong Kong when Ms Poitras accompanied reporter Glenn Greenwald to the initial meeting with Mr Snowden.
The documentary premiered at the New York Film Festival this weekend, ahead of a wider release in the US on October 24.
Citizenfour is the third film to make up the trilogy by Ms Poitras investigating life in the US after September 11.
