The Road to Guantanamo
Wednesday February 15, 2006
Michael Winterbottom continues to blow us away. Every new film adopts a wildly different genre, offers a profoundly different look at the human condition through the filmmaker's lens. "Tristram Shandy," the successful adaptation of what was considered an unfilmmable novel, is currently playing in theaters. Last year, the controversial "9 Songs" provided an intimate portrait of a love affair through sex. The quasi-documentary "Not in this World" was a heartrending account of human smuggling through an adolescent boy's harrowing journey from Pakistan into France.
Winterbottom's new film "The Road to Guantanamo," a searing portrait of the U.S. prison camp in Cuba, premiered yesterday at the Berlin Film Festival, followed by a press conference. In addition to the director, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, subjects of the film and survivors of the prison, attended the packed press conference. Not a traditional documentary or feature, the film uses interviews and re-enactments to tell the true story of four British Muslims who crossed the border to Afganistan to attend a cousin's wedding. Arriving in Kandahar on the first night of US bombing raids, they were captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to the U.S. government, who flew them to the prison camp in Cuba. In Guantanamo Bay, they where never tried for any crime and remained in horrific conditions for the next two years.
"Imagine," the director said, "If someone had said five years ago that the American government was going to create a place, in Cuba of all places, because holding those people would be illegal in their country so they couldn't take them to their country... they would hold people for four years without any trial and often even without charge, people would have thought you were crazy." Winterbottom's film does not leave the subject to the imagination; it's right there on the screen, scenes of beatings by interrogators, prisoners being held for hours in "stress positions," rock music being blasted into solitary confinement cells and desecration of the Koran.
Similar to Steven Sodeberg's "Bubble," "The Road to Guantanamo Bay" will be distributed in numerous different formats. In the UK, the film will air on TV in early March, followed by online, DVD and theatrical releases. Distribution in the U.S. has not been secured yet. The film is one of 19 entries vying for the Golden Bear at this year's festival, which has been dominated by political themes. [posted by Marcy]
Winterbottom's new film "The Road to Guantanamo," a searing portrait of the U.S. prison camp in Cuba, premiered yesterday at the Berlin Film Festival, followed by a press conference. In addition to the director, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal, subjects of the film and survivors of the prison, attended the packed press conference. Not a traditional documentary or feature, the film uses interviews and re-enactments to tell the true story of four British Muslims who crossed the border to Afganistan to attend a cousin's wedding. Arriving in Kandahar on the first night of US bombing raids, they were captured by the Northern Alliance and handed over to the U.S. government, who flew them to the prison camp in Cuba. In Guantanamo Bay, they where never tried for any crime and remained in horrific conditions for the next two years.
"Imagine," the director said, "If someone had said five years ago that the American government was going to create a place, in Cuba of all places, because holding those people would be illegal in their country so they couldn't take them to their country... they would hold people for four years without any trial and often even without charge, people would have thought you were crazy." Winterbottom's film does not leave the subject to the imagination; it's right there on the screen, scenes of beatings by interrogators, prisoners being held for hours in "stress positions," rock music being blasted into solitary confinement cells and desecration of the Koran.
Similar to Steven Sodeberg's "Bubble," "The Road to Guantanamo Bay" will be distributed in numerous different formats. In the UK, the film will air on TV in early March, followed by online, DVD and theatrical releases. Distribution in the U.S. has not been secured yet. The film is one of 19 entries vying for the Golden Bear at this year's festival, which has been dominated by political themes. [posted by Marcy]
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