Tahar Rahim owes his UTA agent, Ali Benmohamed, a huge thank you. If it weren’t for Benmohamed’s insistence that Rahim read the script for The Looming Tower, in spite of Rahim’s blanket refusal to read anything that would cast Muslims as terrorists, he might never have played perhaps the most defining role of his career since his international breakthrough in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet in 2009.
But so far, so agent. What makes Benmohamed so essential to Rahim chasing the role is his first name. When Rahim read the first two scripts for the Hulu miniseries, created by Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright (and based on Wright’s non-fiction book of the same name) he liked what he saw in the character of Ali Soufan—a real-life FBI operative (and a Muslim) who Wright believes came closer than anyone to stopping 9/11. “These types of heroes existed 17 years ago,...
But so far, so agent. What makes Benmohamed so essential to Rahim chasing the role is his first name. When Rahim read the first two scripts for the Hulu miniseries, created by Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney and Lawrence Wright (and based on Wright’s non-fiction book of the same name) he liked what he saw in the character of Ali Soufan—a real-life FBI operative (and a Muslim) who Wright believes came closer than anyone to stopping 9/11. “These types of heroes existed 17 years ago,...
- 6/15/2018
- by Joe Utichi
- Deadline Film + TV
“If you don’t learn about your history, you’re doomed to repeat it.” That’s one of the most important takeaways of the Hulu limited series “The Looming Tower,” according to actor Tahar Rahim. He stars as Ali Soufan, a real-life FBI agent who investigated al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Watch our exclusive video interview with Rahim above.
Rahim had the opportunity to meet Soufan before portraying him, and he wanted to get to know him “just like two friends, to understand more about who he is in his private life so I could bring this to the character.” He was especially impressed by Soufan’s dedication at such a young age. He was in his 20s when he joined the FBI, while Rahim remembers his own 20s as “hanging out with my friends, having fun, parties, restaurants. I was not even aware...
Rahim had the opportunity to meet Soufan before portraying him, and he wanted to get to know him “just like two friends, to understand more about who he is in his private life so I could bring this to the character.” He was especially impressed by Soufan’s dedication at such a young age. He was in his 20s when he joined the FBI, while Rahim remembers his own 20s as “hanging out with my friends, having fun, parties, restaurants. I was not even aware...
- 6/12/2018
- by Daniel Montgomery
- Gold Derby
I remember when I first typed documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras as one cool customer. I was interviewing her on the phone about her 2010 documentary, The Oath — for my money the best of the year. The film is about two Yemeni brothers-in-law, one a low-level driver for Osama bin Laden and the other a soldier who became an al-Qaida member and one of bin Laden’s personal bodyguards. But only one was sent to Guantanamo Bay — the driver, not the bodyguard who, at the film’s start, is seen driving a cab through Yemen and discussing jihad with the young men he meets there.
I asked Poitras how she developed her relationship with the cab driver, Abu Jandal, and here’s how she responded:
As you can see, he talks to media, so he’s not shy. But I needed a different kind of access, and that took a long time to get.
I asked Poitras how she developed her relationship with the cab driver, Abu Jandal, and here’s how she responded:
As you can see, he talks to media, so he’s not shy. But I needed a different kind of access, and that took a long time to get.
- 4/9/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
(San Francisco) – 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Independent Television Service (Itvs), one of the largest sources of funding for independent filmmakers. In recognition of this milestone, Itvs is launching the Itvs Indies Showcase, a free online film festival running from July 25 to September 23, 2011 in honor of the extraordinary contributions of independent filmmakers to public television.
The 20 unforgettable documentaries in the Itvs Indies Showcase represent glimpses of the collection of more than 1,000 productions Itvs has supported as the country’s leading provider of independent films for public broadcasting. Each full-length program will stream for free for three days on itvs.org/indies-showcase where viewers will also find a timeline of Itvs’s history, film trailers, clips, interviews, an audience award contest, and more.
Through the tenacity of filmmakers and their supporters seeking to foster plurality and diversity in public television, Itvs was established by an unprecedented mandate of Congress to...
The 20 unforgettable documentaries in the Itvs Indies Showcase represent glimpses of the collection of more than 1,000 productions Itvs has supported as the country’s leading provider of independent films for public broadcasting. Each full-length program will stream for free for three days on itvs.org/indies-showcase where viewers will also find a timeline of Itvs’s history, film trailers, clips, interviews, an audience award contest, and more.
Through the tenacity of filmmakers and their supporters seeking to foster plurality and diversity in public television, Itvs was established by an unprecedented mandate of Congress to...
- 8/2/2011
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The central figure of Laura Poitras’ fascinating documentary The Oath goes by the alias Abu Jandal—meaning “death”—and worked for four years as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard in Afghanistan during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks. Yet he’s far from the snarling boogeyman of the popular imagination. Shown working as a gregarious taxi driver in Yemen, Jandal turns out to be a deeply intelligent, thoughtful, contradictory man, a former jihadist who hasn’t entirely forsaken the cause, but has chosen to define it much differently than his old boss does. In one scene, he seems convinced ...
- 9/29/2010
- avclub.com
Bob Ellis looks back at this year’s Sydney Film Festival.
We are forbidden urination after a three-hour film and herded bursting out into the rain and pushed in front of speeding traffic by big Tongan guardians of the Red Carpet while inside, in the ever-gorgeous art-deco foyer, barmen and pie vendors gazed on its lovely emptiness planning their bankruptcies and other careers and cursing, like all of us, the Clare Stewart Effect on world cinema.
Audiences entering successive sessions without hellish incident these last 113 years have not educated this woman; clamour, ticketless offices, caffeine deprivation, pissed trousers and lack of a chance to chat between sessions (or even sit on the marble steps) have characterised her Cromwellian rule for years now and several deaths, I calculate, from the pelting rain and it is wrong for her to preen her ghastly dress sense in golden spotlight just because certain films...
We are forbidden urination after a three-hour film and herded bursting out into the rain and pushed in front of speeding traffic by big Tongan guardians of the Red Carpet while inside, in the ever-gorgeous art-deco foyer, barmen and pie vendors gazed on its lovely emptiness planning their bankruptcies and other careers and cursing, like all of us, the Clare Stewart Effect on world cinema.
Audiences entering successive sessions without hellish incident these last 113 years have not educated this woman; clamour, ticketless offices, caffeine deprivation, pissed trousers and lack of a chance to chat between sessions (or even sit on the marble steps) have characterised her Cromwellian rule for years now and several deaths, I calculate, from the pelting rain and it is wrong for her to preen her ghastly dress sense in golden spotlight just because certain films...
- 6/23/2010
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
Filmmaker Laura Poitras makes a documentary called The Oath about Abu Jandal, who was once Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard and is now a cab driver in Yemen. So of course she’s now probably on all sorts of government watchlists, to the point where she often has troubled getting on an airplane. She’s a journalist, mind. Not a terrorist. But Poitras recently let drop another tidbit about how her freedom of the press is being intruded upon by the United States government. From Fishbowl La:...
- 5/27/2010
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Yes, we're excited to see "Iron Man 2," "Inception" and God help us, "Predators." But what we're really looking forward to spending a few hours in the company of an undertaking Bill Murray ("Get Low"), an Italian-speaking Tilda Swinton ("I Am Love") and a toga-wearing Rachel Weisz ("Agora") in the comfort of air-conditioned theater over the next three months. (Either that or we'll be enjoying them from the comfort of home online, on demand or on DVD.)
There are no less than 114 independently produced movies arriving in theaters this summer to compete with the big studio blockbusters and we've compiled this helpful guide that covers all of them. Yet realizing that the latest arthouse and foreign fare is subject to changing dates, particularly if you don't live in Los Angeles or New York, we've also included links to follow the films on Twitter, Facebook and release schedules where available, so...
There are no less than 114 independently produced movies arriving in theaters this summer to compete with the big studio blockbusters and we've compiled this helpful guide that covers all of them. Yet realizing that the latest arthouse and foreign fare is subject to changing dates, particularly if you don't live in Los Angeles or New York, we've also included links to follow the films on Twitter, Facebook and release schedules where available, so...
- 5/11/2010
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
In the aftermath of 9/11, documentarian Laura Poitras set out to make a trilogy entitled “The New American Century.” Her first film, the Oscar-nominated “My Country, My Country,” focused on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, particularly the January 2005 elections, through the eyes of an Iraqi doctor. Her follow-up, “The Oath,” looks at the War on Terror from the point of view of a taxi driver with terrorist ties.
When we first meet Abu Jandal, he is quizzing his young son about what he wants to be when he grows up. Jandal shows the camera a snapshot of the boy as an infant, lying on a blanket between an Ak-47 and a grenade. His son says he wants to be a jihadist, and he knows the weapons in the photograph by name. The scene is horrifying, but the portrait of Jandal that emerges as “The Oath” progresses is not a simple one.
When we first meet Abu Jandal, he is quizzing his young son about what he wants to be when he grows up. Jandal shows the camera a snapshot of the boy as an infant, lying on a blanket between an Ak-47 and a grenade. His son says he wants to be a jihadist, and he knows the weapons in the photograph by name. The scene is horrifying, but the portrait of Jandal that emerges as “The Oath” progresses is not a simple one.
- 5/7/2010
- Moving Pictures Magazine
Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week we hear from Oscar-nominee Laura Poitras about her new documentary The Oath, which arrives this weekend in limited release.
The oath referred to in the title of Laura Poitras's latest doc is a fairly simple, straightforward one -- a brief pledge sworn by new members upon their induction into al-Qaeda. That's about all that's simple about The Oath, however, which tracks two of those members who've since moved on: Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard Abu Jandal, and his brother-in-law (and bin Laden's former driver) Salim Hamdan.
The oath referred to in the title of Laura Poitras's latest doc is a fairly simple, straightforward one -- a brief pledge sworn by new members upon their induction into al-Qaeda. That's about all that's simple about The Oath, however, which tracks two of those members who've since moved on: Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard Abu Jandal, and his brother-in-law (and bin Laden's former driver) Salim Hamdan.
- 5/6/2010
- Movieline
Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras talks about the making of her film “The Oath” about two former Al-Qaeda members. The documentary looks at the story of brothers-in-law Abu Jandal and Salim Hamdan. Abu Jandal was a former body guard to Osama bin Laden and is now living as a taxi driver in Yemen. Salim, who worked as bin Laden’s personal driver, was arrested shortly after 9/11 and is in Guantanamo Bay. Poitras describes how she shot all her footage alone in Yemen and contrasts the sort of storytelling she does with what people see about Yemen and Al-Qaeda in the mainstream media. She elaborates on how recent news about Yemen may or may not impact the public reception of her documentary and what she hopes this film can achieve in terms of affecting her viewers’ understanding of the region and issues in the film. Finally, Poitras sheds light on the community that documentary filmmakers have created,...
- 5/5/2010
- Moving Pictures Magazine
The Oath, the newest film from Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country) is opening this Friday, May 7, at the IFC Center in New York City, with a national rollout to come. In her latest documentary, this Oscar-nominated director follows the stories of two men related by marriage and their involvement with Osama bin Laden. Salim Hamdan was once bin Laden's bodyguard, while Abu Jandal was bin Laden's driver. Whereas Hamdan became a prisoner at Guantanamo and consequently was sent to trial, Jandal became a taxi driver in Sana'a in Yemen. His guilt over recruiting Hamdan and his brother-in-law's ensuing treatment at Guantanamo and military tribunals is juxtaposed against his discussions with his young son about "Uncle Salim" and his own feelings about the world and his religion in the world after 9/11. Watch the trailer below, and keep your eye on the official website for more information on when and where...
- 5/5/2010
- TribecaFilm.com
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