एडवांस सर्च

On May 26, 2002, we watched the Colombian presidential elections from Bogotà's regal Plaza de Bolivar. We had come to Colombia to document the campaign of controversial presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt. But on Election Day, Ingrid never arrived. Instead, the candidate appeared in the Plaza as a cardboard torso-carried in the arms of her husband, Juan Carlos Lecompte. As Juan Carlos and Ingrid's mother, Yolanda Pulecio, pleaded with the Colombian people for solidarity, Ingrid spent Election Day deep in the Colombian jungle-a hostage of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and one of the thousands of victims of Colombia's 40 year-old civil war. In THE KIDNAPPING OF INGRID BETANCOURT, Ingrid Betancourt tells her own life story including how, since the beginning of her congressional election in 1994, she risked her life by denouncing Colombian politicians who have been linked to drug cartels. The film continues after the day she is kidnapped on February 23, 2002, and documents her family and her political party, thrown into upheaval, as they struggle to free her and to keep her presidential campaign alive.

Pip & Zastrow: An American Friendship is the true story of two men who cross racial boundaries during segregation in the 1940s and form a life-long friendship that takes extraordinary turns. With humor, compassion and heartbreak, Pip and Zastrow navigate through 60 years against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and a country that has yet to overcome deep-seated racism and social inequity.

On February 12, 2003 a Pentagon-owned Cessna went down in the jungle of southern Colombia. At the crash site, guerillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia's largest insurgent group, surrounded the men as they emerged from the plane, and later shot and killed an American pilot and a Colombian crewmember. The three other Americans were captured as "prisoners of war" and are still being held hostage. With unprecedented access, Colombian journalist Jorge Enrique Botero obtained this exclusive interview with the three men in a jungle prison camp on July 25, 2003. Seen for the first time since their abduction, Thomas Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell, flanked by guerrilla soldiers with automatic weapons, reveal what daily life is like in captivity and express their fears that they will never leave Colombia alive. In emotional sequences, the hostages learn that their co-workers died trying to rescue them, and send heartbreaking messages to their loved ones. And in a dramatic confrontation caught on camera, a FARC commander becomes suspicious that they are operatives of the CIA, rather than civilian contractors. With expert testimony from academics and politicians, HELD HOSTAGE IN COLOMBIA also calls into question the long-running American drug policy in Colombia and the US government's response to terrorist acts around the world.