Project X (2016) dir. Henrik Moltke, Laura Poitras

There is a tower in downtown Manhattan without any windows, built to withstand an atomic attack. A fine example of early-’70s American brutalism, its bold concrete and granite protrusions and two tiers of vents give the sense of a church organ. Within its blank walls is a major long-distance telephone exchange, operated by AT&T. There is an office park in Fort Meade, Maryland, much like any other, except that some of its lots are fringed by barbed wire and barricades. Less than a mile away from the National Security Administration’s headquarters, it is home to the offices of intelligence and defense contractors. A car leaves this place late one night. Dash-cam and passenger-window views reveal decorative foliage blanched in LED streetlights and then a section of I-95, shared at this hour mostly with long-haul truckers. In bone-dry voice-over, Rami Malek and Michelle Williams narrate passages from an NSA handbook, engineering report, and internal newsletter—redactions and all. The first of these documents advises on car rental protocol, cover stories, and proper attire for site visits to TITANPOINTE, an information surveillance hub, which may or may not be (but very likely is) inside the windowless AT&T building to whose entry ramp the car presently arrives.