Bermuda International Film Festival will screen a documentary exploring the torture of Iraqis at the hands of the United States military. The film, ‘Ghosts of Abu Ghraib’, received strong reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will be shown this Thursday at 7.30 p.m. in the Tradewinds Auditorium at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.

The 78-minute documentary takes a look at the abuses that occurred in the fall of 2003 at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The film looks at the incident from all sides, including narratives from the perpetrators, witnesses and victims. The award-winning director, Rory Kennedy, told HBO that: “To do a film that probed the psychology of the perpetrators, and why they were motivated to do what they did, I was thinking and expecting that I would hear about their childhoods, that there was any inclination towards violent behaviour, but when I asked each of them why they committed these acts, they all said the exact same thing: ‘I did it because I was told to do it’.”

The Royal Gazette asked Duncan Hall, the deputy director at BIFF, whether this film is considered controversial and he admitted that any film taking on the United States government is bound to create a controversy. Mr. Hall encouraged people to “watch the film, weigh the evidence and then make their own decision about this event”. According to a BIFF press release, the film is: “Powerful, restrained and fiercely compelling — the film demands that the United States examine its conscience as a nation.”

BIFF is known for showing films that would not otherwise come to the Island. This year’s festival in March debuted 85 films from 35 countries — including foreign-language films and documentaries.

For the remainder of the year, with the exception of December, the BIFF film club offers a monthly selection to the public.

These screening generally draw out 85-125 people, Mr. Hall said: “It just shows that there is a desire on the part of film-goers in Bermuda for something different than what goes into the commercial theatres on the Island.”

‘Ghosts of Abu Ghraib’ is not suitable for those under 18 years old.