By Jan 24th 2011 – My Kidnapper directed by Mark Henderson and Kate Horne is an emotional journey into a kidnapping, told from all sides. A powerful and fascinating documentary which has been acclaimed by festivals worldwide, the film will be released in UK cinemas on 11 February 2011.
In 2003 Mark Henderson was one of eight backpackers taken hostage whilst trekking in the Colombian jungle. What had started as an innocent tourist adventure, ended up as 101 terrifying days of captivity and uncertainty about his future. Eleven months after his release Mark received an email from Antonio, one of his kidnappers, and one of his fellow hostages received a facebook friend request from Antonio’s girlfriend, another of their captors. That email was the start of a five-year correspondence between hostage and kidnapper that eventually drew Mark back to the one part of the world he thought he’d never see again and face to face with the man who had once held the key to his freedom.
The Sheffield Doc/Fest, where the film was recently screened, says this about the film: “Six years after being kidnapped and held 101 days by guerillas of Colombia’s Marxist ELN, Mark Henderson returns to the Sierra Nevada mountains to confront one of his captors, Antonio, who’s been emailing with him for five years. Three more of the eight kidnapped backpackers come with him:Reini, a German woman who has similarly had a Facebook correspondence with Antonio’s fiance, and two Israeli men whose belligerence to their captors contrasted with Mark and Reini’s cooperation, and who have no desire to communicate with the kidnappers again. What might be seen as an exorcism of the Stockholm Syndrome becomes something dramatically deeper, as kidnappers and hostages struggle to come to grips with the after effects of their actions. Justifications and rationalisations are not enough, closure may never be possible, but the struggle for understanding is as difficult in its own way as the ordeal of kidnapping.”
The film is a deeply personal, authored documentary which follows Mark and three of his fellow hostages as they return to the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern Colombia, the place where they lived out their worst nightmares. As they travel deeper into the jungle, they discover the truth behind what happened to them, come to understand how they all dealt with the ordeal and finally confront two of their kidnappers. Ultimately, My Kidnapper is a film about forgiveness, atonement and humanity.
The feature debut of Mark Henderson and Kate Horne, My Kidnapper was five years in the making. Mark Henderson has worked in the British television industry for 15 years and has directed and produced documentaries and factual series on subjects as diverse as teenage pregnancy, the British adoption system and homelessness. Kate Horne is a producer and journalist with a passion for South America and especially Colombia. She recently completed her second feature documentary on the kidnapping of Ingrid Bettancourt.
Comments