Laura Poitras | The Oath [Bin Laden's Bodyguard] (2010)

Описание: Originally aired 2010. "Laura Poitras was nominated for an Oscar, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Emmy for My Country, My Country (2006), a documentary about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. She received a Peabody and was nominated for Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (2003, with Linda Goode Bryant), a documentary about gentrification that won the award for Best Documentary at SXSW. Following My Country, The Oath is Poitras' second documentary in a trilogy about America post 9/11. Poitras is the recipient of a Guggenheim Felllowship and a Media Arts Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She has attended the Sundance Institute's Documentary Storytelling and Edit Lab as both a Fellow and creative advisor. She is currently working on The Guantanamo Project, a multi-media project to collect documents and artifacts from Guantanamo Bay Prison. Before making films, she worked as a professional chef. She lives in New York City.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT:

'I was first interested in making a film about Guantanamo in 2003 when I was also beginning a film about the war in Iraq. I never imagined Guantanamo would still be open when I finished that film, but sadly it was—and still is. Originally, my idea was to make a film about someone released from Guantanamo and returning home. In May 2007, I traveled to Yemen and that’s when I met Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, who drives a taxi in Yemen. I wasn’t looking to make a film about Al-Qaeda—I really wanted to tell the story of a Guantanamo prisoner returning home, but the story changed when I met Abu Jandal. Themes of family, guilt, betrayal, regret, loyalty, absence, etc, are not typically things that come to mind when we imagine a film about Al-Qaeda and Guantanamo, so the story compelled me. It was a way to confront the traumatic events of the past nine years. THE OATH is the second documentary in a trilogy I am working on about America post 9/11. The first film, MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY, tells the story of the U.S. occupation of Iraq from the perspective of an Iraqi doctor. The final film will be set in the U.S., focusing on the 9/11 trials. In each film, my goal has been to understand these world events through the stories of the people living them. I also want the films to serve as primary documents. As a nation, I don’t think Americans have begun to come to terms with 9/11 and its repercussions (Guantanamo, the invasion or Iraq, legalization of torture, etc.). If the United States and other western nations hope to confront and contain the threat of Al Qaeda, we must understand its motivations and internal divisions. To do that requires first seeing Islamic radicals as real people—subject to the human condition rather than apart from it. To acknowledge that humanity is not a justification of their acts, but rather an acceptance of an uncomfortable reality.' "