Memories of Guantanamo - Official Teaser

For years, the media has pressured both George W. Bush and Barak Obama to "Close Guantanamo." Just recently the Obama administration has announced aspirations to usher in new relations with Cuba. What will be the future of GTMO?

The average American only knows GTMO as a prison for terrorists.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is one of the most unique land properties of The United States of America. A strategic military installation for over 100 years, it’s been the source of controversy from early in the 20th century, again in the mid 20th century with Fidel Castro, and yet again most recently in the post 911 era with the Guantanamo Bay detention camps. It is the only Naval Base located on communist soil and the only military base in a country in which the United States doesn’t have official diplomatic relations.

Would you be shocked to hear that GTMO (pronounced Gitmo) is a great place to raise a family? Or that there are about 5000 men, women and children who live there, who go to school there, who play softball, eat at McDonalds and go bowling there? This film tells the untold history of daily life on the most controversial military base in the world from the perspective of the people who actually lived there. Memories of Guantanamo takes a look back at the unique history of Guantanamo Bay and explores daily life on the island throughout the last century.

In the 50s, life on GTMO was like something from the movie Pleasantville or the TV series Leave it to Beaver: peaceful, social and...well, pleasant. The Cuban Missile Crisis of the 60s introduced us to a new enemy in Fidel Castro and everything changed after that. During the 80s, GTMO ended up housing tens of thousands of refugees from Haiti and Cuba. Most recently GTMO has had the dark reputation of the Camp X-ray detention camps during the post 911 war on terror.

Directed by award winning documentary filmmaker Trevor F. Ward, this film is being produced using historical resources from the Guantanamo Public Memory Project, based out of Columbia University.

www.memoriesofguantanamo.com