LOS ANGELES, Feb 21 — Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's big-screen dramatisation of US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's mass surveillance revelations will be released on Dec 25, distributor Open Road Films said yesterday.

“Snowden” will star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked details of US and British surveillance and electronic monitoring programmes.

Filming has begun in Munich and will move to other locations before its expected completion in May. Open Road Films is a joint venture by Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Theatres, part of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson will also star in the film adapted from books The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's lawyer.

Snowden's disclosures were documented in filmmaker Laura Poitras' “Citizenfour,” which was released last year and is the favourite to win the best documentary Oscar tomorrow.

The 31-year-old Snowden fled to Hong Kong before revealing the secret surveillance programmes and now lives in Russia. — Reuters