YEMENI FILM ABOUT AL-QAEDA IN US FILM FESTIVAL 2010

SANA’A, Jan. 22 (Saba)- A documentary film about al-Qaeda by Yemeni journalist Mr. Nasser Arrabyee will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival 2010, which started January 20, in the United States.

In a statement posted on the blog of Arrabyee, he was the producer of the 95-minute documentary film about al-Qaeda and Guantanamo detainees, which was directed by American filmmaker Laura Poitras.

The film, which is called The Oath, will be screened from 22 to 31 of current January in the Salt Lake City, Park City, and Sundance Resort in the State of Utah in the US.

The Oath was filmed over two years in Yemen and Guantanamo Bay, and tells the story of two Yemeni men whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a course of events that led them to Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the US Supreme Court.

Three films premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival - Last Train Home, My Perestroika and The Oath - will have their national broadcast premieres on the award-winning POV documentary series on PBS, it was announced by Simon Kilmurry, Executive Director, American Documentary POV.

Unraveling like a lush, gripping novel that constantly subverts expectations, The Oath is the interlocking drama of two brothers-in-law, Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, and Salim Hamdan, an ex-prisoner at the US-run Guantanamo Bay Prison and the first man faced the controversial military tribunals, whose associations with al-Qaeda in the 1990s propelled them on divergent courses.

The film delves into Abu Jandal's daily life as a taxi driver in Sana’a, Yemen, and Hamdan’s military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay prison. Abu Jandal and Hamdan’s personal stories—how they came to serve as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver respectively—act as prisms through which to humanize and contextualize a world the Western media demonizes. As Hamdan’s trial progresses, his military lawyers challenge fundamental flaws in the court system.