Film screening : "The Response"

On Friday 15 November The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London and UCL Faculty of Laws hosted a London exclusive film screening of The Response, a courtroom drama based on the actual transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals.

The film screening was followed by a question and answer session with filmmaker Sig Libowitz during which students, staff and guests took part in a lively discussion of the war on terror, the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, and the role of film and other media in telling these stories.

Dr Cian Murphy, Director of Graduate Research Studies, chaired the event, while Professor Colm O Cinneide (UCL) and Dr Tom Hickman (Blackstone Chambers) also took part in the panel discussion.

The film revolves around the tribunal of a suspected enemy combatant and the three military officers who must decide his fate. The Response holds a mirror up to the tribunals and allows an audience to see and hear for themselves what took place. The film places the audience inside the tribunal process where they, along with the military judges, must decide the fate of a detainee.

Dr Murphy said:  “The challenge for us as lawyers viewing this film is, at the very least, to bear witness. Although, as Primo Levi wrote, we may be tempted to ‘turn away with a grimace’ in the face of human rights abuses, we have to resist this urge and face up to what is done in our time. We are very grateful to Mr Libowitz and his crew for bringing this film to the world – and to us here at King’s. There have been few global problems as difficult for national institutions, and indeed for transnational law, as rendition and detention in the ‘war on terror’ and this film shows just how troubling it can be."

See forthcoming events from The Dickson Poon School of Law.