For his screenplay, Libowitz used numerous
transcripts from the CSRTs and fashioned them
into the fictional story of one particular detainee . . .
When Sig Libowitz took a homeland security class at the University of Maryland School of Law, the last thing he expected was to end up developing a film based on material about Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) he would discover during the course. But as he sat in Professor Michael Greenberger’s “Homeland Security and the Law of Counterterrorism” seminar, that’s exactly what happened.
“When I read the transcripts of what was really going on down in Guantanamo, I thought, this is amazing. Before reading the cases, I thought I had a pretty good sense of what was going on down there. I figured I read the papers, I watch the news— but I was just stunned,” says Libowitz. “It led me down a path, both of curiosity and creativity."
Libowitz next approached Dean Karen Rothenberg, who also saw the potential of the film. She agreed to shepherd the project through the university’s innovative Linking Law and the Arts program, which uses the arts to explore and open up discussion around complex ethical and social issues. “The Response presents some of the most important questions at the core of our constitutional democracy in a compelling and accessible way for a broad audience,” says Dean Rothenberg.
"From the moment of that first conversation, Dean Rothenberg got what the film was about," recounted Libowitz. "She's very creative, and she liked that the film would not be one-sided agit-prop, but rather a courtroom drama that explores the uncertainty and the high-stakes of the issues that the characters are facing. From there, the law school and its students got very excited by the possibilities of bringing these issues to life, and we sort of turned the law school into a mini studio. Everyone donated their time and energy to the project."
Screenplay based on Actual Guantanamo Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Transcripts
For his screenplay, Libowitz used numerous transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) (months of research yielded several hundreds of pages of additional tribunal transcripts which were used in the creation of the screenplay) and fashioned them into the fictional story of one particular detainee — Al Aqar, a Ph.D. engineer who has studied in the West. The government has accused Al Aqar of being a terrorist and a bomb maker. Shackled and chained to the floor, the detainee is questioned by three military judges — Colonel Richard Jefferson, Colonel Carol Simms, and Captain Joshua Miller — who must decide his fate.
Bringing out the Stars
After finishing the script, Libowitz teamed with a group of talented fellow filmmakers, including director Adam Rodgers, another Baltimore native who met Libowitz during their days at New York University. His team reached out to a group of top-notch actors to portray Colonels Jefferson and Simms, two of the military tribunal officers, and the detainee.
After a brief rehearsal period in New York, The Response was shot over three days at the University of Maryland School of Law, using only two locations: a moot courtroom for the tribunal sequence and a conference room for the judges' deliberation sequence. Several law students were heavily involved in the filmmaking process. A number served as production assistants, researchers and drivers. A few even got to work with the stars, reading with the actors to help them memorize their lines. One student, Sandra Goldberg – who had twice travelled to Guantanamo as a paralegal to a team of attorneys – became a key researcher for the film.
"The Response" and Emerging Homeland Security Policy
As the film finished post-production, the U.S. Supreme Court debated major detainee cases. The filmmakers embarked on a major program of taking the film to the public through festivals and screenings. The results of that effort can be seen in the attention the film has garnered throughout the country and internationally.
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