The Real Events

After the events of 9/11, the Bush administration needed to find the men responsible for attacks or who had any ties to terrorism.

Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, had the idea to print millions of leaflets and drop them all over Afghanistan. These leaflets essentially said: "Brings us a terrorist and you'll receive a lot of money." And a lot of money meant from $1,000 to $50,000 which was a fortune in Afghanistan at the time. So people started turning on each other; such as their neighbor who owned neighboring land or the taxi driver who had a car they wanted; their political opponents; etc.

These men were detained by local police then brought to the CIA. The main issue here is that the CIA never checked on the culpability of these men but instead sent them immediately into interrogation with questions such as "Where is Bin Laden?" or "How did you get involved with Al Qaeda?" In most scenarios, these detainees had never heard of these terrorist leaders. However, if they could not answer they were sent to CIA secret sites, also called "Black Sites," were they were submitted to torture.

Those detainees that the CIA believed to have information that they refused to reveal were sent to the prison in Guantanamo Bay Cuba to be tortured until they revealed such information.

In the meantime, Donald Rumsfeld and several military "experts" --including General Geoffrey Miller who will command Guantanamo --devised new "enhanced interrogations techniques" that could "lead to permanent injuries or even death."

775 detainees were brought to Guantanamo. Most of them have been released without charge. 6 died while in detention. The oldest prisoner was 89 years old and the youngest was 13. 86% of these prisoners were sold to American troops in responses to a bounty offer. To this day 30 detainees remains in Guantanamo.

Photographs from Guantanamo Prison

The Film

There have been several films to examine torture during the War on Terror such as "The Report" or "The Mauritanian." They were all made from the point of view of the American hero who is the one to defeat the terrorists.

This is the first film made from point of view of the victim. The main characters are fictional, and the others real--such as General Geoffrey Miller. And everything that happens to them is based on authentic facts. These have been documented in the multiple public hearings that have been held regarding the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and other CIA black sites around the world.