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Sig Libowitz has already screened “The Response,” his short film based on the Guantanamo Bay detainee tribunals, at selected festivals across the country. Yet he admitted he will be more nervous Wednesday, when the movie is shown at the University of Maryland School of Law.
Sig Libowitz has already screened “The Response,” his short film based on the Guantanamo Bay detainee tribunals, at selected festivals across the country. Yet he admitted he will be more nervous Wednesday, when the movie is shown at the University of Maryland School of Law.
That’s because Libowitz, a Baltimore native, shot the movie in February at the law school from which he graduated last year.
“It’s like showing it to your family,” Libowitz said.
He is now practicing law in Washington, D.C. But prior to his legal career, Libowitz was an actor, screenwriter and producer, with “The Sopranos” and “Law & Order” on his acting resume.
His two worlds collided one day in the spring of 2006 in Professor Michael Greenberger’s “Homeland Security and Law of Counterterrorism” class. There, Libowitz read transcripts of detainee hearings at Guantanamo, officially known as “combatant status review tribunals.”
“I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” Libowitz said. “We all have an understanding of the legal system. This was very different.”
The detainees were not provided attorneys at the hearings, which were overseen by military judge advocate generals acting as prosecutor, judge and jury. The detainees were also not allowed to see classified evidence against them.
“It’s not run as a typical court-martial,” Libowitz said.
Libowitz used Guantanamo transcripts to create composite sketches of a detainee, played by Aasif Mandvi (“The Daily Show”), and three JAGs, played by Kate Mulgrew (“Star Trek: Voyager”), Peter Riegert (“Animal House”) and himself. The audience follows the officers as they decide on the detainee’s guilt or innocence.
Libowitz, who also talked with lawyers and military personnel previously stationed at Guantanamo, deliberately stayed away from the politics surrounding the tribunals.
“To me first and foremost it had to be a courtroom drama,” he said. “It’s not left-wing or right-wing agitprop.”
But Libowitz is pleased the film has caused people to rethink their initial views of the tribunals. Panel discussions following earlier screenings have exceeded their allotted time, he said.
“It’s right there at the nexus of constitutional rights and national security,” he said of the tribunals. “What are you willing to give up? What are you willing to protect?”
Fundamental issues
Greenberger met with the actors prior to filming and got into a discussion as to whether or not military officers would be using the term “habeas corpus.” That they were talking about an individual right guaranteed as far back as the Magna Carta shows the legal implications of the tribunals, he said. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that detainees had a right to habeas corpus under the Constitution.
“This was a fundamental issue, the right of detainees to have a fair hearing,” Greenberger said. “That kind of enormous constraint on liberty is elucidated in the movie.”
Karen H. Rothenberg, dean of the law school, saw similar lessons when Libowitz pitched “The Response” to her two years ago.
“The issues it raises, a lot of people in the country aren’t aware about what was going on at the Guantanamo Bay tribunals,” she said.
The school produced the film as part of its “Linking Law and The Arts” program in conjunction with local arts organizations. It shares an executive producer credit with Venable LLP, where Libowitz is an associate. Greenberger served as the film’s technical advisor.
Students also assisted in the three-day shoot, from rehearsing lines with actors to ensuring the film’s accuracy — one associate producer traveled to Guantanamo twice as a paralegal, and the film’s military advisor was a U.S. Marine Corps captain stationed at Guantanamo.
Filming was done in one of the law school’s mock courtrooms, where Libowitz had practiced as a member of the 2006 Trial Team national champions.
“This was the community that supported it,” Rothenberg said, calling Wednesday’s screening “part two” of the process.
Part three for “The Response” remains to be seen, as it is still looking for a distributor. Venable will present additional screenings in Washington and Baltimore in November. The film will also be shown at film festivals in Charlottesville, Va., and New Orleans next month. The short could also be turned into a feature-length film or a play, Libowitz said.
For now, Libowitz is pleased to show people the shades of gray behind tribunals many view as black or white.
Said Greenberger: “The script goes to the heart of the question of why [the detainees] are there in the first place.” |
