Canadian Premiere
In December 2001, 19 year-old Murat Kurnaz is arrested while on a pilgrimage in Pakistan. His mother, Rabiye Kurnaz (Meltem Kaptan, Best Leading Performance at Berlinale)—a feisty housewife of Turkish descent living in Bremen, Germany—is desperate to track him down. In February 2002, she discovers that Murat is being detained indefinitely in Guantánamo Bay. Rabiye enlists the help of a human rights lawyer, Bernhard Docke (Alexander Scheer), to petition for his release.
For her voice to be heard, Rabiye must cut through red tape, international political tensions, and language barriers. With Bernhard as her ally and translator, she travels to Washington to appeal to the press, and eventually, the Supreme Court. While the odds against Murat may seem insurmountable, hope persists for Rabiye in the form of her quirky, budding friendship with Bernhard. Brimming with charm, tenderness, and unexpected levity, Andreas Dresen’s Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush weaves a true story of courage and determination to speak truth to power.
A fresh, real-life spin on David and Goliath.”—Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance (Meltem Kaptan) & for Best Screenplay, Berlin 2022
Meltem Kaptan, Alexander Scheer, Charly Hübner, Nazmi Kirik, Sevda Polat
Germany/France
2022
In German, Turkish, and English with English subtitles
Graphic Violence
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre
Day of Wrath
Anna, the young second wife of a well-respected but much older pastor, falls in love with her stepson when he returns to their small seventeenth-century village. Stepping outside the bounds of the village's harsh moral code has disastrous results.
House of Hope
"House of Hope" is the name of a Waldorf elementary school near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, founded by Manar and her husband Milad. This documentary follows their efforts to go about their lives before, during, and after the events of October 7.
NAZA
NAZA is a codeword euphemistically used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians it expects will be killed in an airstrike. This chilling documentary exposes the policy and process of state-sanctioned mass killings.
You Had to Be There
In a strange quirk of fate, the legendary Toronto '72 production of the musical comedy Jesus hit Godspell launched a constellation of comedy stars, all unknown at the time but now known to us as Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, et al
Atonement
A former Marine suffering from PTSD seeks a meeting with the Iraqi family to which he did great wrong ten years earlier in the Gulf War. Atonement navigates challenging, politically-charged psychological territory with diligence and sensitivity.
The Sandbox
Borders are the faultlines of the world. Kenya-Jade Pinto's doc examines how modern surveillance technology, bio-metrics and AI are combining to make land and sea borders as impenetrable as air travel, and suggests the unspoken cost is our own humanity.
Credits
Producer
Claudia Steffen, Christoph Friedel
Screenwriter
Laila Stieler
Cinematography
Andreas Höfer
Editor
Jörg Hauschild
Production Design
Susanne Hopf
Original Music
Johannes Repka, Cenk Erdoğan
Director
Andreas Dresen
Andreas Dresen has worked as a freelance author and director since 1992. Some of his award-winning films include Night Shapes (1999), which won the German Film Award in Silver; Grill Point (2002), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival; and Cloud 9 (2008), which was awarded the Coup de Coeur jury prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes Film Festival. Dresen is also a successful playwright and director. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and the European Film Academy and is a founding member of the German Film Academy.
Filmography: Stilles Land (1992); Night Shapes (1999); Grill Point (2002); Cloud 9 (2008)