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Guantanamo comes to Morocco for film shoot
2007-02-13
A 16th century Marrakesh palace has for the past three weeks been transformed into the infamous American prison camp in Guantanamo Bay to set the scene for a movie being shot there, Moroccan media have reported. South African director Gavin Hood is using the castle as a backdrop for his political "Rendition", starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon and Peter Sarsgaard. The film tells the tale of a CIA analyst in Cairo who witnesses an unorthodox interrogation of an Egyptian chemical engineer suspected of being a terrorist. The El Badia palace has, according to a set worker quoted by Moroccan daily Aujord'hui, been completely transformed to resemble Guantanamo, even featuring Moroccans walking around in the American camp's notorious orange jumpsuits. The Moroccan part of the shoot is scheduled to last for eight weeks, and will include a scene shot in the seaside town of Essaouira, formerly known as Mogador. Hood will also take his cast to South Africa and the United States to shoot other scenes for the film.
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