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Festival Films A-Z
Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, The
Nomados LLC.
Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker
608 River Road
Rhinebeck, NY 15572
USA
Tel.: +1 84 50 87 66 440
E-Mail: info@nomados.net
Michael Tucker
Michael Tucker
Ro*co Films International
Annie Roney
332 Pine Hill Road
Mill Valley
CA 94941
USA
Tel.: +1 415 383 8872
Fax: +1 415 383 8896
E-Mail: annie@rocofilms.com
D/USA 2006, Regie: Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker, OmeU, 72 min.
Synopsis
Baghdad, September 2003: In a middle class house on a quiet street, a family is fast asleep. Without warning, the front door is crashed and American soldiers storm the house looking for weapons and bomb-making material. Cameraman Michael Tucker documents the event as the men in the house are cuffed and forced to kneel in the garden. A search of the house uncovers no incriminating evidence. Nevertheless, Yunis Khatayer Abbas and three of his brothers are taken and detained.
Bent on forcing Yunis to confess to crimes he did not commit, his captors press him with bizarre questions about music tastes, sexual preferences and Harrison Ford. His intelligence value exhausted, he is then transferred to Abu Ghraib Prison. The charge: Planning the assassination of Tony Blair.
Among thousands suffering from food shortages, riots and insurgent attacks, Yunis endures by helping his fellow prisoners and keeping a secret diary. He also forges an unlikely friendship with one of his guards, whom he calls "The Good Soldier".
Combining Tucker\'s embedded footage, Yunis' home movies, testimony from former guard Benjamin Thompson and original comic book art, Tucker and Epperlein trace the moving story of an ordinary man trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Their decision to use comic book art was more than anything else influenced by the protagonists himself. "Yunis had a real appreciation for American culture," adds Michael Tucker. "A lot of what he said really felt cartoonish or comic-like, especially when he would describe how he was interrogated, referring to figures like Rambo, Clint Eastwood, and James Bond. Illustrations seemed like the perfect fit."
Unique in its presentation and unlikely in its very existence, The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair details an absurd comedy of errors where one freedom-loving Iraqi journalist learns the true meaning of liberation.
Biography
The Last Cowboy (1998), Gunner Palace (2004), The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (2006)
Filmography
The Last Cowboy (1998), Gunner Palace (2004), The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (2006)
Dates
| 05 | 01.10.2007 | 21:00 | Kommkino |
| 61 | 06.10.2007 | 21:00 | Festsaal |