Movie highlights ABQ lawyers’ Guantanamo efforts
It started with a trip to Albuquerque. In 2015, producers Lloyd and Beatriz Levin traveled to New Mexico to meet with lawyers Nancy Hollander and Theresa Duncan.
At the time, the two women were representing Mohamedou
Ould Slahi — who was incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
This moment was the impetus behind the film “The Mauritanian.” The film hit select theaters Friday. A premium video on-demand release date is expected in early March.
The film is based on Slahi’s bestselling memoir, “Guan
tánamo Diary,” published in 2015. It follows the imprisonment and the fight for freedom of Slahi, who was captured by the U.S. government in the West African country of Mauritania in 2001.
According to published reports, U.S. intelligence officials believed Slahi was involved with al-Qaida’s European and North American operations, including the 9/11 attacks. He was imprisoned for 14 years without trial at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp beginning in 2002. The site is a U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a U.S. outpost on the southeast coast of Cuba.
Slahi was released on Oct. 17, 2016. The movie is his account of survival against all odds as he fights for freedom and finds allies in his defense attorneys Hollander and Duncan.
“The U.S. government, once they get a hold of you, they never quit. He didn’t get a passport for three years,” Hollander said. “He won his habeas in 2010 and was ordered to be released, though he didn’t get released until years later.”
Oscar winner Jodie Foster portrays Hollander, Shailene Woodley plays Duncan, and Tamar Rahim portrays Slahi.
“I don’t know what’s more exciting,” Hollander said from her New York City apartment. “That Jodie Foster plays me or the attention the film has been getting.”
Last week, Foster picked up a Golden Globe nomination for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for her portrayal. Rahim picked up the nomination for best performance by an actor in a motion picture drama.
The film is also getting attention from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, where it is on the long list for 11 categories.
Hollander — who is a partner at Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg Urias & Ward in Albuquerque — hopes that the film will bring more attention to Guantanamo Bay.
“Guantanamo is a huge stain on the system,” Hollander said. “The military commissions — they aren’t real courts. The Constitution doesn’t apply, and they can use hearsay. There are 40 people there, and about 30 have never been charged. They should all be out, and that’s not what we do in this country. You don’t hold people for 15 years without charge. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Hollander was involved in the screenplay from the start.
“I provided the filmmakers with the transcripts of hearings, I explained the law to them and the case, and I said that ‘I know you can’t include everything, but I want you to know what really happened and then you can decide how you’re going to put this into a movie,’ ” Hollander said.
Slahi was the first detainee to publish a memoir while imprisoned.
When casting, the production reached for the stars and landed Foster, Woodley, Rahim and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Producer Adam Ackland thought getting Foster was “too good to be true.”
“We thought about Jodie really early on, but it was a bit of a pipe dream,” Ackland said. “You don’t actually think that someone like that is going to engage with you, but she was very open to it, and her and Kevin connected really well. She was amazing.”
Leah Clarke, producer, said there was quite a lot of work to do on Hollander’s character.
“She is unrelenting, she is not sentimental, and she is a career fighter,” Clarke said. “We also felt that it was really important — for the real Nancy Hollander — to represent her accurately as this rock that essentially, over 15 years, helps Mohamedou, and still does today. It was a really tricky character to get right.”
Hollander was able to visit the set a few times. — once in South Africa. When she sees the actor Rahim, there are bits of Slahi she notices.
She has also already seen the film in different iterations. And she says that while it’s exciting to have the world hear the story, there are some scenes she can’t watch.
“I can’t watch the torture scenes anymore,” Hollander said. “I love watching the film, and I can’t get enough of it. The rape scenes are awful. There’s a hallucination scene where he sees his mother. I can’t watch that.”
Hollander is grateful that Duncan was part of the journey as well.
“Teri was right there from the beginning,” Hollander said. “We never saw Mohamedou together. We wanted to see him every couple months, so we staggered our trips. A lot of what we worked with was classified, and it took time to see our client.”
Duncan has been practicing law since 2000, when she graduated cum laude from the University of New Mexico School of Law.
In 2003, Duncan joined the defense team for Terry Lynn Nichols, who faced the death penalty for his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
When she returned to New Mexico in 2004, Duncan joined the law firm of Freedman Boyd Hollander et al., eventually becoming a partner. She left the firm in 2012 to start her own practice, Duncan Earnest LLC.
Hollander hopes for change and believes the film can be a vehicle for it.
“It’s still happening, and I have another client there,” she says. “I signed the contract for the film in 2015 before Mohamedou got out. We’re hoping the film will help get the other 40 out and close Guantanamo.”
This is at least the second time a New Mexico lawyer has been fictionalized on the big screen.
In 1992, the Tom Cruise movie “A Few Good Men” was said to be based on David C. Iglesias, a Navy lawyer at the time. He later became the United States attorney in New Mexico. In 2006, President George W. Bush made headlines when he took the unprecedented step of firing eight U.S. attorneys, including Iglesias.