Cinema Libre announced this past week that the documentary filmmaking team of John Goetz and Ben Hopkins’ Guantánamo Diary Revisited, a look at the 15-year imprisonment of Mohamedou Ould Slahi — a Mauritanian citizen — at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, will be making its DVD debut on Mar. 29.
From 2002 until 2016, Slahi was held, but never charge with a crime. In the third year of his detention, he began writing a diary of his experiences. It detailed what life was like in Mauritania before being swept-up as an “al Queda” operative and the daily grind, the torture, the insults, the terror of his imprisonment … but in many ways his book exposed the ineptness of an intelligence bureaucracy that had difficulty sorting out fact from fiction.
Despite a Federal judge’s order that Slahi be released because he had not been charged with any crime, the government had the order stayed and Slahi’s detention continued. His book, “Guantánamo Diary,” was published in January of 2015 after being “cleared” by authorities (with redactions), but Slahi was denied a copy while still imprisoned. It became a best-seller and was made into a theatrical production titled The Mauritanian, featuring Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tahar Rahim as Mohamedou Ould Slahi.
American journalist John Goetz read the book and when Slahi was finally released in October of 2016 he contacted him about doing a documentary on his experiences. Slahi had written three additional books while still confined, all of which are still “under review” by the U.S. Government … when Goetz met with Slahi, he got something completely unexpected, an invitation to his former tormentors to come visit him in Mauritania and have tea.
At this point, Goetz’s film took a turn from simply revisiting the years of captivity and a discussion of his writings, to a look at reconciliation … would anyone actually accept such an offer? Yes, some did … and there in is the story of Guantánamo Diary Revisited, an intriguing look at the captive, the captors and, in Slahi’s own words the end to it, “I am telling you wholeheartedly that I have forgiven you.”
Included as a bonus feature is a Q&A session with Mohamedou Ould Slahi and John Goetz.
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