Synopsis

“We are here to help you” say agents to Omar Khadir - Canadian citizen, borned in Toronto on September 19. In 1986 he was fifteen years old when he was taken prisoner by U.S. forces in Afghanistan on July 2002. Captured in battle and severely wounded he was taken to Bagram Air Force base where he was interrogated and tortured. On October 2002, he was sent to the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay. The U.S. government accuses Omar Khadr of having killed an American soldier and intends to try him as a war criminal. Having spent the last five months in Guantánamo, he would quickly break under psychological pressure from the Canadian agents. Indeed, by the second day he had already fallen into a state of profound psychological regression. This interrogation lasted four days between February 13th and 16th, 2003, at a US maximum security facility in Guantanamo Bay. The entire encounter was recorded. In May, 2008, the Canadian Supreme Court ordered the Canadian government to turn over to Omar Khadr's lawyers thousands of pages of documents related to the case. This was how seven hours of videotape entered the public domain. Each of the four days of interrogation possesses its own particular qualities but taken together, the chronology gives the story a structure that unfolds in four chapters.Day 1 - Hope. Day 2 - Fallout. Day 3 - Blackmail. Day 4 - Failure. On the final day when the Canadian agents are just about to leave we hear the last words exchanged: He gets up and put the A/C on. Omar is the last citizen of a western power being held in Guantánamo. The Canadian conservative government has refused to request his repatriation.

A.P.

Wybrane nagrody i festiwale /Selected festivals and awards : 2010 - MFF Amsterdam, Nagroda Specjalna Jury/IDFA, Special Jury Award, 2010 – FF Montreal /Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal, 2010 – FF Havana/The Havana FF, 2011 - Festiwal DocPoint/DocPoint Festival, 2011 - DocsBarcelona, 2011 – Tempo, 2011 – FF Saloniki/Thessaloniki Documentary FF, 2011 – Festiwal Praw Człowieka w Londynie/ London Human Rights Watch Film Festival.