Directed by Laura Poitras
Filmed over a two-year period, The Oath interweaves the stories of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard (now driving a cab in Yemen), and Salim Hamdan, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged with war crimes. Filmmaker Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country, ND/NF 2006) takes us deep inside the world of Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, and U.S. interrogation methods through a dramatic structure filled with plot reversals, betrayals, and never-before-seen intelligence documents.
The second in a planned trilogy on America post–9/11, The Oath is an intricately constructed work that keeps the viewer off balance and works on several levels. Shading the complexities of her subjects in the manner of great novelists, Poitras delivers an intimate portrait that precludes easy conclusions as it questions the methods of America’s war on terror with uncommon eloquence. A Zeitgeist release.
2010. USA. 95 min.
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Fri Mar 26: 6:15 (FSLC)
Sun Mar 28: 4:00 (MoMA)
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:
Laura Poitras received a Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy and an Independent Spirit Award for Flag Wars (2003; made with Linda Goode Bryant), and she was nominated for an Academy Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Emmy Award for My Country, My Country (2006). The Oath is the second documentary (after My Country, My Country) in a trilogy titled The New American Century, about America after 9/11. She is currently working on The Guantanamo Project, a multimedia project to collect documents and artifacts from Guantanamo Bay Prison. She lives in New York City.
