A new documentary debuting this Saturday, Feb. 2 at Titan Theater sheds light on the reality of torture.
(Jan 27, 2013 – Anaheim, CA)
Much of the mass media has fixated on whether the film Zero Dark Thirty glorified torture. Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow has been forced by critics to explain her use of graphic, detailed torture scenes in her new film, which dramatizes the hunt and assassination of Osama Bin Laden. But while headlines and talk shows focus on Bigelow and her film, less has been said about two new reports detailing extensive torture, or about the realities of torture.
We begin with Murad Aldin Amayreh. He is a filmmaker and his film is called “The Tortured: Stories of Survival.” Hector Aristizabal, one of his interviewees in the film was tortured in Colombia. He is now a theater artist and psychologist, and his play on the same subject is being staged on February 27 at Fais do do in West Hollywood.
Then, three experts join us: Pamela Merchant is executive Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability. Gerald Gray is a social worker and psychotherapist who works with torture victims and who has initiated numerous institutes to assist them (including the Center for Justice and Accountability). Stephen Rohde is a constitutional lawyer, founder and Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and a Vice President of Death Penalty Focus, and author of “American Words of Freedom,” and “Freedom of Assembly.”