Around midnight in a winter night in 2023, Omar, a 21 -year -old member of a group of Afghan dredgers responsible for protecting green berets in the region, heard his door.
His brother, eight, his junior, asked who it was. “The Taliban,” replied a man on the other side on the side of the door, dressed in a traditional Afghan costume, according to a transcription examined by The Hollywood Reporter of an interpreter who told Omar to tell the events.
Omar was blindfolded and arrested. He did not return for more than two weeks, the date on which he was found bloody and bruised from blows and drownings which saw him drifting and leaving conscience.
Taliban forces found Omar of a scene in RetrogradeA acclaimed documentary of Matthew Heineman in 2022, offering a look at the field on the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan a year earlier. In a close -up, the camera is heard as another member of the National Mine Reduction Group, or NMRG, expresses the concerns of being hunted when he returns to civil life. A clip for this documentary segment later spread like forest fires on Tiktok in Afghanistan.
They showed me Retrograde Film and said that you worked with foreign forces and that you also worked in the film, “said Omar, according to the transcription prepared by a former interpreter of special forces for the Foundation 1208, an organization that evacuates the Afghans who cleaned the mines for the American forces in the region.” They found me through Retrograde Film and always ask me for villagers and family members. »»
A medical examination has shown that the coasts of Omar were broken and that the lungs do not work properly, among other internal injuries. A trip through the border of Pakistan and four surgeries later, he died.
Omar's wife and child were extracted from Afghanistan in another country where they will be safe from the threat of the Taliban reprisals. And now, the family continues the producers and distributors of the documentary, notably Disney and National Geographic, being lacking for murder.
The trial, deposited at the Los Angeles Superior Court on April 24, alleges unjustified death, negligence and unfair commercial practices. He accuses the producers and distributors of the documentary to exploit Omar's identity for “commercial gains while knowingly placing it in serious danger” and not complying with industry standards concerning the protection of people appearing in documentaries filmed in war areas. The succession requires damage and non -specified national geographic names, which produced the title as part of a joint agreement with Disney, Picturehouse and our time projects, the Heineman production banner.
Retrograde Follows the last nine months of the 20 -year American war in Afghanistan. National Geographic discreetly removed the documentary from its platforms last year after The Washington Post published a story Explore if the functionality has put some of its subjects in danger. It no longer appears on Disney + or Hulu. Last year, the Digital Television News Association radio canceled a prestigious documentary journalism prize, citing general information that he received on the “cinema process” after the publication of the Post article.
In a declaration at the time, Heineman and Retrograde Producer Caitlin McNally said: “The hasty withdrawal from the American government of Afghanistan and the actions of the Taliban by taking power – armed with detailed information identifying the Afghans who worked with the American government – led to the death of countless partners left behind. Report – would be deeply wrong. “”
They stressed that the US military approved the film for its release – a decision that could relate to the potential endangerment of Afghan entrepreneurs but not to its staff. “The main thing is that the military public affairs officers and green berets approved the final version of the film for the release, which included faces of NMRG,” they told Job.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for the first amendment who represents the duo, refused to comment.
THRWho has held this story until Omar's family is safely evacuated from Afghanistan, contacted Disney, National Geographic and our temporal projects to comment.
Before the publication of the documentary, Heineman and McNally have been warned several times by the American military personnel and the old green berets that the carriers of mines would be endangered if they were shown in RetrogradeSay Thomas Kasza and Dave, who has obtained anonymity because he is an active American soldier. They direct the Foundation 1208 and extracted the family of Omar from Afghanistan. Kasza and Dave urged Heineman and the producers of the documentary, as well as Disney and National Geographic, to blur the faces of NMRG staff but have encountered resistance.
Retrograde Was “roughly a Hollywood success list” for the Taliban, says Kasza.
Before the first of the documentary in 2022, McNally told Dave in a message that she was concerned about the security of an Afghan who had appeared in production, according to texts examined by THR. “We are trying to get him out for weeks, but we could not do it,” she wrote, saying he was “definitively in danger now”.
Nine other people whose face has been shown in the documentary remains in the hiding place, according to the organization. One fled to Iran after his release, but was expelled shortly after.
At the heart of the trial: allegations that RetrogradeThe creators ignored the safety of the dredgers of Afghan mines whose faces were revealed in production. He also provides a complaint for misleading business practices, accusing producers not to obtain Omar's consent to use his resemblance and his identity without appropriate release and distort the documentary as a “responsible representation of the withdrawal of Afghanistan while endangering the lives of the people represented”.
“What Disney has done here aggravates the tragedy,” explains John Uustal, a partner of Kelley Uustal whose company has filed the trial on behalf of Omar's succession, referring to the refusal of the entertainment giant to insist on blurring the faces and helping to evacuate the family's efforts.
Kasza and Dave argue that Disney could have facilitated the evacuation of flirting flirtators vulnerable to the Taliban's revenge kills but chose not to do it. There is a precedent, known as Kasza, with the company in 2021 by writing letters of approval for around 300 Afghan actors and crews who worked on Countrywhich was produced by a Fox television arm.
Add to Dave: “Heineman's thing was that the faces of despair tell the story. I'm not going to argue, but if these faces are used so that you can publish a documentary and put more rewards on your shelf, that doesn't mean it's true.”
