The Response, a movie written and produced by Venable attorney Sig Libowitz, will screen on Wednesday, January 20th at 6:00 pm at Columbia Law School. A panel discussion will immediately follow the screening.
The Response was Executive Produced by Venable, in association with The University of Maryland School of Law, and is a courtroom drama based, in part, on declassified transcripts of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) held on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The film stars Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager), Peter Riegert (Animal House, The Sopranos) and Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart).
Sig Libowitz and the full cast will participate on the panel discussion following the screening, along with Shane Kadidal (Senior Managing Attorney for the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, the Center for Constitutional Rights), Matthew Waxman (Associate Professor of Law and Columbia Law School and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs in the Bush Administration) and Karen Rothenberg (Former Dean, University of Maryland School of Law). The film was recently chosen as one of only ten films worldwide to advance in the voting process for the upcoming Academy Awards as Best Short Film (Live Action). If interested in attending the event, please RSVP to culture@law.columbia.edu
The movie also recently received the 2009 ABA Silver Gavel Award as best of the year in Drama & Literature, which is the American Bar Association's highest award for law related media. It also won the Audience Award for Best Film at the Politics on Film festival in Washington, D.C. The Response has been screened at the Pentagon and the Department of Justice and Libowitz was invited to Guantanamo to serve as a legal observer to the Military Commissions.