Document

UK Premiere

Laura Poitras/USA/2010/96 min

Those Islamophobes who seek to blame religion for the rise of the al-Qaeda, thus conveniently dismissing Western imperialist complicity, would do well to check out this insightful documentary from Laura Poitras, director of acclaimed post-9/11 doc My Country My Country. We follow bin Laden’s former bodyguard Abu Jandal as he picks up fares in his taxi, and through a series of interviews he explains his fallout from al-Qaeda in parallel with that of his brother-in-law Salim Hamdan, who was held in Guantanamo for years having been reruited by Jandal to be bin Laden’s driver. Failing to convince the Supreme Court that Salim, who only appears in the film through grainy al-Qaeda footage, was guilty of terrorism, the US Congress invented a new law, now charging Salem with “materially supporting” bin Laden. Meanwhile, when Jandal finds out about al-Qaeda he agrees to help the US with some insider’s info. Poitras’ portrait of Jandal presents a reasonable and charismatic character who, faced with the oppressive horrors of Western imperialism, is torn between fighting back with force and fighting back with, in his words, “the pen.”; it’s a humbling experience to see the West through his eyes.

Showing @ Cineworld 23 Jun 20:50 and 26 Jun 18:15