I AM GITMO: Director Philippe Diaz interview| ScreenSlam
2SYNOPSIS
Following the events of 9/11, a schoolteacher in Afghanistan is arrested under suspicion of terrorism, and brought to Guantanamo Bay where he’s subjected to relentless interrogation and torture in I AM GITMO, a stark, powerful and disturbing drama based on real events. Winner of a Jury Special Award at the 11th Annual Socially Relevant Film Festival and nominated for Best Film and Best Director at Spain’s Marbella Film Festival, it opens theatrically on April 26 as pressure ramps up for Gitmo’s eventual closure.
Written and directed by Philippe Diaz (The End of Poverty?, Now and Later) and inspired by the declassified legal hearings of earlier detainees, I AM GITMO takes place in 2002 and revolves around Gamel Sadek (a bravura performance by Sammy Sheik; American Sniper, Transformers: Dark of the Moon), an Egyptian man living in Afghanistan with his family, who is sold for a CIA bounty and forcibly brought to Bagram Air Base under suspicion of terrorism. There, he is brutally interrogated and tortured, then flown to Guantanamo prison where his status as an “enemy combatant” does not offer—according to the Bush administration—protection under the Geneva Convention. For the very first time, the treatment that Guantanamo’s Arab Muslim prisoners experienced upon arrest is told from their point-of-view in this unforgettable drama, co-starring Eric Pierpoint (Liar, Liar, Alien Nation).
According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, 780 men and boys, all of them Muslim, have been imprisoned at Guantánamo since January 2002. Of these detainees, 86 percent were sold to the CIA/ US government for a large bounty. The amount offered was up to 14 times the average salary in Afghanistan. Of these 780 prisoners, 30 remain imprisoned today. Of all the men renditioned to Guantanamo, only eight were convicted of any crimes, four of whom had those convictions reversed.
“I Am Gitmo scarily brings back, in high resolution, the suffering and the stories I lived through firsthand. It was a hard watch for me. Please watch it to understand what I mean,” says Mohamedou ould Slahi, a former Guantanamo prisoner and author of the international best-selling book, “Guantanamo Diary.”
Sheik, who captured a Best Actor Award at Spain’s Marbella Film Festival for his role as a Guantanamo detainee says, "I’m honored to be a part of telling this very important story. For the first time, the narrative is being told from the point of view of one of the many victims of the “war on terror” and the grave injustices he and many others had to endure without the usual idolization of the western hero that Hollywood has been presenting for years."
And director Diaz adds, “Like so many, I was utterly appalled to find out that the US government offered a bounty for men delivered to the CIA -- never checking on their culpability but instead putting them through torture. I decided to make a film from these men's perspective and with no white-man-hero to save the day! Many scenes are shot from the prisoner's point of view. I want the spectators to ask themselves: ‘What would I feel if I was kidnapped from my home and tortured for no reason."
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