THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO

by Michael Winterbottom

In September 2001, Pakistani Asif Iqbal leaves his home town of Tipton for Pakistan to meet his future wife. He invites his three friends Ruhel, Shafiq and Monir as witnesses. At the wedding, the Imam asks them to go to Afghanistan to help the people there. They arrive in Kandahar on the night of the first US bombings. The four men soon find themselves penetrating deeper into the war zone until they are finally arrested. After weeks of detainment they are flown out to Guantanamo, where they are imprisoned as potential terrorists. Although it soon transpires that there is no truth in these allegations, it is two years before Shafiq, Asif and Ruhel are able to return to Tipton, but without their friend Monir who disappeared in Afghanistan.