The Oath (2010 film)
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| Directed by | Laura Poitras |
| Produced by | Laura Poitras, Jonathan Oppenheim, Nasser Arrabyee, Aliza Kaplan, David Menschel |
| Music by | Osvaldo Golijov |
| Cinematography | Kirsten Johnson |
| Edited by | Jonathan Oppenheim |
| Distributed by | Zeitgeist Films |
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Arabic |
The Oath is a 2010 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras. It tells the cross-cut tale of two men, Abu Jandal and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose meeting launched them on juxtaposed paths with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the September 11 attacks, US military tribunals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The film is the second of a trilogy, with the first being My Country, My Country (2006), documenting the lives of Iraqi citizens during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The third, Citizenfour (2014), focuses on the NSA's domestic surveillance programs. The Oath is distributed both theatrically and non-theatrically in the US by New York-based Zeitgeist Films.
The film revolves around Abu Jandal, a taxi driver in San'a, Yemen who had worked as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden for four years, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan. The latter worked for bin Laden as his driver in Afghanistan, and was captured in 2001 during the US invasion. He was detained as an enemy combatant and transported in 2002 to Guantanamo Bay. Hamdan was the first defendant to be tried in the U.S. military tribunals established by the United States Department of Defense.
The men became brothers-in-law after marrying sisters. The lives of the two men are explored and challenge viewers' ideas about jihad, loyalty and al-Qaeda. The filmmaker Laura Poitras inter-cuts Hamdan's trial (his military lawyer challenges the tribunals as unconstitutional and takes Hamdan's case to the US Supreme Court) with Jandal's contradictory conversations with his son and Muslim pupils, and during media interviews.
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