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<font size=3>This film " Road to Guantanamo" was just released
in the Bay Area and is a must see. 2 articles from February follow. For
anyone who has known a US prison, they have clearly captured the
mentality of US prison guards and the US military while exposing the
consistent willingness to torture and violate human rights by
both.<br><br>
<br>
Trailer
<a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4631171106002398288" eudora="autourl">
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4631171106002398288<br><br>
<br>
</a>Ex-captives push Guantanamo film<br>
<br>
Tuesday 14 February 2006 6:56 PM GMT <br><br>
<b>Two former Guantanamo Bay captives have joined Michael Winterbottom, a
British director, to promote his semi-documentary film about their
experience, an appearance that they coupled with a call for the prison's
closure. <br><br>
</b>Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, friends who became known as
"the Tipton three" after their English hometown, were captured
in Afghanistan in 2001. They were released without charge from the US
detention centre on Cuba in March 2004. <br><br>
The Road to Guantanamo, one of 19 films competing at this year's Berlin
International Film Festival, combines interviews with the men, news
archive material and scenes re-creating their experience. Ahmed and Rasul
joined Winterbottom on Tuesday, at the film's premiere. <br><br>
Rasul said: "We want to show the world what's happening in
Guantanamo. What we really want is everyone to be released from there; we
want the place to be closed down." <br><br>
The three Britons and a fourth friend went to Pakistan shortly after 11
September, 2001, to attend Iqbal's wedding. <br><br>
The film depicts them travelling next to neighbouring Afghanistan, after
hearing an imam's call to help people in need there. Of the then-ruling
Taliban, Ahmed said: "We had no idea who they were."<br><br>
They were captured by Northern Alliance troops before being taken to
Guantanamo. <br><br>
<b>Sweltering cages<br><br>
</b>In a report released by their lawyers in 2004, the three Britons
claimed they suffered systematic brutality and were kept in open cages in
the sweltering Cuban heat, and that the treatment forced them to make
false confessions. <br><br>
"We had it rough, but we didn't have it as bad as others, for
example the Arabs. Because we could speak English and communicate with
people, I think it made it a lot easier for us."<br><br>
The United States is holding about 500 people in Guantanamo on suspicion
of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, though only 10 suspects have been
charged. The prison has drawn widespread criticism in Europe and
elsewhere. <br><br>
Winterbottom and co-director Mat Whitecross met the three about two
months after their release, and Whitecross spent a month interviewing
them for material for the film. <br><br>
Winterbottom won the Berlin festival's top Golden Bear prize in 2003 for
In This World, a story of two young Afghans' gruelling journey to England
as refugees. <br><br>
He said The Road to Guantanamo focused on the personal story of the three
- to "put faces to three of the people there and then imagine that
could also apply to the other 500 people who are still
there."<br><br>
Winterbottom told reporters: "The starting point was to tell (about)
these three people, not to tell the general political situation.<br><br>
"All the images you see - it's hard to know whether it's deliberate
or not, they sort of dehumanise the people there -you don't have any
sense of what they're like."<br><br>
<b>Personal approach<br><br>
</b>In concentrating on the personal approach, the filmmakers did not
seek comment from US and British authorities, Winterbottom said. He
brushed aside suggestions that the film could be seen as anti-American.
<br><br>
He said: "I don't think the film is anti-American in a general
sense."<br><br>
He said that it aimed to send the message that "the fact of
Guantanamo's existence is shocking and terrible, and it shouldn't be
there".<br><br>
Rasul said that "nobody's ever said, to this day, that we are
innocent". The two former captives also said they had expected more
support from Muslims at home after their return. <br><br>
"In their eyes - not all of them - but the area we live in, we were
guilty. It was hard for our families."<br><br>
The film is to be shown by Britain's Channel Four television in March.
Winterbottom did not give details of other release plans. <b> <br><br>
</b>You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CA6D056D-5224-4759-8ABA-580C210B1B16.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CA6D056D-5224-4759-8ABA-580C210B1B16.htm</a>
<br><br>
<br>
Guantanamo film re-opens debate <br>
By Damien McGuinness <br>
in Berlin <br><br>
<b>One of the most eagerly awaited films at this year's Berlin Film
Festival, The Road To Guantanamo by British director Michael
Winterbottom, is premiered in the German capital on Wednesday. <br><br>
</b>Judging from the attention it has already attracted here, the film
looks set to re-ignite the whole debate about the Guantanamo Bay American
detention camp in Cuba. <br><br>
There aren't many films which create a buzz at Berlin Film Festival
before being shown. <br><br>
It was no surprise that Tuesday's press screening of The Road To
Guantanamo filled to capacity as soon as it opened its doors. <br><br>
<b>'Shocking' <br><br>
</b>The film tells the story of the three British Muslims, from Tipton in
the Midlands, who went to Pakistan to arrange a wedding, travelled to
Afghanistan and were transported to Guantanamo Bay. <br><br>
They were held there without trial for more than two years before charges
were dropped and they were released in March 2004. <br><br>
Dramatised scenes, charting their journey, are interspersed with
interviews with the men themselves, who explain what happened to them and
how they felt. <br><br>
"I don't think the film is anti-American because there are plenty of
Americans who are against Guantanamo Bay too," says Michael
Winterbottom. <br><br>
"But the very fact that this camp exists is shocking. <br><br>
"We are telling the story of these three people so you can imagine
yourself what it is like to be in a situation where your rights are taken
away from you, you have no contact with your family and no idea when you
will be released," he adds. <br><br>
Winterbottom first came up with the idea of making the film when he met
Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed two months after they had been
released. <br><br>
He interviewed the men, and turned the resulting 600 pages of transcript
into a 95-minute feature. <br><br>
"If someone had said five years ago that the US would set up a camp,
in Cuba of all places, to hold people for four years without trial or
charges, then you would have thought he was crazy. <br><br>
<b>'Hard to sleep' <br><br>
</b>"But the problem is, people have got used to it." <br><br>
Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed came to Berlin and said they were pleased
with the film. <br><br>
"When you are first released it's hard to sleep," says Shafiq
Rasul. <br><br>
"You keep hearing soldiers banging on the cells and you wake up
sweating and thinking of soldiers and then you realise you're back home.
But as time goes on, you have to move on and live your life."
<br><br>
<b>I don't think the film is anti-American because there are plenty of
Americans who are against Guantanamo Bay too <br>
</b>Film director Michael Winterbottom <br><br>
Winterbottom is no newcomer to Berlin. In 2003 he won the festival's top
prize, the Golden Bear, for the documentary-style drama In This World,
which followed two Afghan asylum seekers on their journey to the UK .
<br><br>
But despite getting a lot of attention for the subject matter, not
everyone is so impressed with the film itself. <br><br>
"I don't really know what the point of it is, as it doesn't tell you
anything new," said Anne Troester, film critic for the Berlin-based
magazine The Ex-Berliner. <br><br>
"It seemed very black and white, like all the Americans are bad and
all the Muslim guys are good. <br><br>
"If you are an American who doesn't know the facts about Guantanamo
Bay, you're just going to end up walking out because you'll feel
alienated," she says. <br><br>
But Luke Harding, Berlin correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, said:
"I thought the film was brilliant. You could really feel empathy for
them." <br><br>
Judging from the amount of interest already generated at Berlin,
distribution for the film is likely to be widespread. <br><br>
Winterbottom plans to release the film simultaneously online and on DVD,
and in March it will be shown on Channel 4 television in the UK. <br>
Story from BBC NEWS:<br>
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/4715474.stm" eudora="autourl">
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/4715474.stm<br><br>
</a>Published: 2006/02/15 11:26:38 GMT<br><br>
© BBC MMVI<br><br>
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