‘In Guantanamo’ the documentary reviewed
We have all heard of the notorious Guantanamo Bay, we have seen some of the images of the barbed wire fences, the steel cages and the prisoners in their distinctive and dehumanising orange jump suits.
The documentary film ‘In Guantanamo’ provides unprecedented access to the Guantanamo prison camps is the first documentary film about Guantanamo which has been filmed inside the base with the co-operation of the military and more importantly ‘In Guantanamo’ is sympathetic to the plight of the detainees.
The Guantanamo naval base, often called ‘Gitmo’, covers forty five square miles of Cuba under a controversial ‘permanent lease’ to the United States.
Guantanamo bay naval base was established in 1898, when the United States took control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War. The US established the base under authority of the Platt amendment in 1899 which authorised the United States to expand its sphere of influence in Cuba and protect American interests. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was given to the US in February 23, 1903, by Tomás Estrada Palma, the first President of the nominally independent Cuba, the newly formed American protectorate incorporated the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution.
The Cuban-American Treaty held, among other things, that the United States, for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations, has “complete jurisdiction and control” of the Guantánamo Bay, while the Republic of Cuba is recognized to retain ultimate sovereignty.
For over 50 years now the the post revolutionary Cuban Government has sought to end the US occupation of Cuban territory, stating that the 1903 and 1934 lease agreements were imposed on Cuba under duress and are unequal treaties, no longer compatible with modern international law.
The US Guantanamo Bay base has in recent years achieved global notoriety for its high security detainment facilities for alleged terrorists, particularly because of the officially sanctioned use of torture and the routine abuse of the Muslim prisoners.
The camp was originally developed to hold prisoners who had allegedly been captured on the field of combat in Afghanistan although many were handed over to US authorities by Afghanis in exchange for the payment of a large bounty, they were denied prisoner of war status by the US Bush administration because they would have been prevented from interrogating and mistreating them under the Geneva convention they were instead termed ‘enemy combatants’.
The U.S. Military states that the detention of enemy combatants is not criminal in nature,but to prevent them from continuing to fight against the United States in the War on Terrorism…as well as to gather intelligence to thwart further terrorist assaults.”
“Many of these enemy combatants are highly trained, dangerous members of Al-Qaida, its related terrorist networks, and the former Taliban regime,” alleges a now declassified Pentagon paper
“Our intelligence and law enforcement communities develop leads, comprehensive assessments, and intelligence products based on information detainees provide. The information includes…plans for attacking the United States and other countries.”,”Some detainees served as trainers in al-Qaida training camps,” the document continues, “significant among these are the detainees that served as explosives trainers.”
Although US President Barack Obama has given orders for the detention camp to be closed, the facilities remain open to this day.
David Miller’s quiet, powerful film is the result of three days the filmmaker spent touring the camps in May 2008 as part of a small group of media representatives who were allowed into the Guantanamo base.
The event was presented as a chance to ’see inside’ the working of Guantanamo, but it was in fact a carefully staged PR exercise designed to present controlled media images.
The main actors are the guards who appear to have been well rehearsed in putting forward a view of Guantanamo as being a relaxed kind of holiday camp for those detainees who chose are compliant.
Guards also saw all non compliance of detainees as confirming that they are Al Qaida operatives who have been trained in counter interrogation.
Much of the dialogue from guards emphasises how good the facilities are for example pointing out that detainees can watch DVD’s choosing from Sport, discovery channel or Disney movies.
The footage is limited for many security reasons lots of things are of limits to the photographers are given a guided tour of the base including the now abandoned and overgrown Camp X Ray, this very crude and basic facility was used from January to April 2002.
The film crew were allowed only to film the detainees in long shots with the guards and the facilities in the foreground, all of the film footage was subject to military censorship before the film crew left the facility, although they did manage to give us a good overall view of the camp
The film ‘In Guantanamo’ was produced by David Miller from 2008 to 2009 in conjunction with Yvonne Ridley, PRSNL Pictures and the VODO team. Special thanks to Editor Luca Lucarini.
IN GUANTANAMO is released via VODO under a Creative Commons Non-Commerical No-Derivs Attribution License. The filmmaker does not permit remixes but would like the work to be shared freely for non-commercial purposes.
VODO is founded by Jamie King, one of the figures behind STEAL THIS FILM (www.stealthisfilm.com). VODO brings filmmakers together with the distribution power of the filesharing community. It aims to offer fresh, quality films on a free-to-share basis, promoted and distributed through a ‘coalition’ of filesharing partners that includes big names like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Miro, TorrentFreak, Isohunt, Plube, OneDDL Vuze and and Frostwire, amongst many others.
‘Together, the filesharing community has a distribution capacity that rivals and even exceeds that of the mainstream media,’ says Jamie King. ‘VODO aims to leverage that power for the benefit of filmmakers and other creators. By sharing films freely through the most popular and fastest growing filesharing sites, we’re building audiences in the hundreds of thousands for artists. That has material value for these filmmakers, through raised profile, donations and marketing. It’s a win-win situation and it’s the future of distributing media after copyright.’
Followers of release groups like aXXo will be familiar with the model. But VODO is a release group with a twist. Not only are artists voluntarily sharing: downloaders can choose to make voluntary donations to creators. VODO lets creators manage their own donation links, with all donations going directly to the filmmaker. Regular supporters of the VODO project will receive access to all the films being considered for release.
VODO aims to release at least one film per month during the rest of 2009 and 2010. Forthcoming titles include the premiere of ‘In Guantanamo’, a documentary by first-time director David Miller - but King says that fiction titles, animation and shorts will also be on the distribution list. ‘During 2010 VODO will build out a series of revenue opportunities for its creators, with the free-to-share model at their core,’ he explains.
VODO collaborators include Nils Hellberg of Piratbyran (Sweden, Design) and Rama Cosentino of BurnStation (Argentina, programming), with programming support by Dan O’ Huiginn (UK). Members of the advisory board include Ashwin Navin, ex-CEO of Bittorrent Inc., and Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay.
Download the documentary film ‘In Guantanamo’ here from Mininova website