Audience Award goes to The El-Masri Case
The El-Masri Case by German author Stefan Eberlein was voted the best film by the audience with the total score of 4.9.
The fourth edition of the Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival (AJB DOC), held from 10th from 14thSeptember in Sarajevo and online, closed with the award ceremony. All films screened at the festival also competed for the Audience Award, which was presented subsequently, once all the votes have been counted.
The El-Masri Case by German author Stefan Eberlein was
voted the best film by the audience with the total score of 4.9. It tells the story of a German citizen Khaled
El Masri, an immigrant to Germany, whose life turned into a real nightmare
after 9/11 terrorist attacks, over a case of mistaken identity.
In 2004, while on a bus
trip Macedonia, German citizen Khaled El Masri disappeared. It turned out that
he had been kidnapped by the CIA and taken to a secret prison near Kabul. Five
months later, he was released in a forest in Albania. El Masri was an innocent
man.
His case was the main
reason why the CIA’s worldwide “rendition programme” came to light. Its agents
were forcibly taking suspected terrorists to secret locations and torturing
them in order to extract confessions and obtain information.
With the support of human rights lawyers in
Europe and the United States, El Masri spent the years after his abduction
trying to restore his moral and legal integrity and to obtain a formal apology
– so far in vain.
The
presentation of the Audience Award has concluded all activities at this year’s
AJB DOC.