Film Opening: The Road to Guantanamo
I just finished watching "The Road to Guantanamo." It is as good as the reviews say. It opens June 23 in theaters in some cities and you should definitely see it. It's part documentary and part drama. It's very fast-paced and the scenes in Afghanistan and Guantanamo are very real -- and frightening. It also will make you very angry -- and drive home the realization that not all the detainees at Guantanamo can be the "worst of the worst" because many don't belong there at all. And yes, they were mistreated.
The four subjects of the film, Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed, Shafiq Rasul (pdf), and Monir Ali were British teens of Pakistani descent who went to Pakistan because one was getting married in an arranged marriage. Almost on a whim, they naviely decided to go to Afghanistan. The U.S. started its bombing campaign right afterwards. They get captured by the Northern Alliance and three of them get turned over to the Americans who won't believe they aren't al-Qaeda and send them to Guantanamo where they are held for two years without charges before being returned to England and finally freed. They appear in the film as narrators while actors re-create their ordeal. The fourth, Monir Ali, got separated and has not been heard from again, although he may be in a Pakistani prison.
The film won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin film festival for best directing.
Since I'm not a film reviewer, you can read the plot here and I'll also quote from another review I found to be right on the mark:
"The Road to Guantanamo" is a terrifying and enlightening first-hand account of three British citizens of Pakistani descent who were held for two years without charges in the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after they were captured by Northern Alliance soldiers in Afghanistan and handed over to the American military occupiers. Known as the "Tipton Three" (in reference to their home town in Britain), the three young men were eventually released and returned to Britain, although no formal charges were ever filed against them at any time during their ordeal.
Part documentary, part dramatization, the film chronicles the bewildering sequence of events that led from the initial quartet setting out from Tipton in the British Midlands for a wedding in Pakistan, to their naively crossing the border in response to a local Iman's call for men to travel to Afghanistan to give aid to the people just as the U.S. began its bombing campaign, to the eventual capture of three of them by the Northern Alliance and their imprisonment in Camp X-Ray and later at Camp Delta in Guantanamo. Co-Directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross recount the harrowing and courageous journey of these young men, their friendships and shared tragedies, as they go from the safety of their small-town teenage existence to the heart of the "war on terror."
Courtesy of the studio I have 4 passes for readers to see The Road to Guantanamo, as well as 4 film posters. If you'd like one, send me an e-mail with your name, age (over 18 is fine) and address and I will pick 4 winners randomly. The studio will then mail you a ticket and poster.
Here's the schedule of cities the film is opening in June and July. Really, don't miss it.
Update: Raw Story interviewed Ruhel Ahmed, one of the detainees in the film.
| < Cheney and the Dark Side: 9pm ET, PBS | Duke Lacrosse Open Thread > |
