"The Road to Guantanamo"

Polemical director Michael Winterbottom has debuted his film "The Road to Guantanamo" at the Berlin Film Festival. It is a documentary-fictional recreation (in the same vein of Winterbottom's In This World), following the story of four British muslims, three of whom were picked up in Afghanistan by bounty hunters in 2001 and ended up in Guantanamo for two years.

The four were 20 years old when accompanied a friend to Pakistan for his wedding, subsequently travelling to Kandahar to see Afghanistan. Caught up in the US war, three were apprehended in the desert between Kunduz and Kandahar, fleeing the US offensive in a crowd of Taliban soldiers. One was never heard from again.

photo by James Hill

Accused of being anti-American, Winterbottom says he was merely trying to capture the experience of the men. The film has created great interest in Berlin and is set to open in the UK on March 6. US release dates have not been announced.