The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
Co- Directed and Co-Produced by
Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein
October 21 | 7 pm
“War is a big ugliness. This film is about the little ugliness, the abuses of dignity, the small mistakes that cause huge disruption in the lives of little people.”
Phillip Kennicott, Washington Post
“…gives you hope for humanity in general is that Abbas came out of his demeaning and heart-rending experience with his dignity…”
Gene Seymour, Newsday
“The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair is a powerfully moving documentary about one Iraqi man’s mistreatment…
Peter Brunette, Screen Daily
“”The Prisoner” actually communicates something much more profound than any other Iraq documentary I have seen to date. Something that transcends the specifics of this prisoner, or this war, or this period in history. Something about the need to look deeper than the immediate circumstances to seek out the basic humanity of those you might otherwise fear, hate, or suspect.”
Christina Davidson, Iraq Slogger
“You can get a fine, nuanced and ultimately very disturbing sense of the durable and deeply ingrained anger among the Iraqis from an extraordinary documentary film by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein”
Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
In an absurd comedy of errors, a freedom-loving Iraqi journalist is mistaken as Tony Blair’s would-be assassin and sent to Abu Ghraib Prison where he discovers the true meaning of liberation.
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, however 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, who 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.
Unique in it’s presentation and unlikely in it’s 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.
