Hostage: The Bachar Tapes

An experimental documentary about the crisis surrounding the Western hostages in Lebanon in the Eighties and early Nineties. The events which then caused great consternation, and led to scandals such as the Irancontra affair, are described here through the testimony of Souheil Bachar. Bachar was imprisoned from 1983 to 1993. In 1985 he was the only Arab to share a cell for three months with Terry Anderson, Thomas Sutherland, Benjamin Weir, Martin Jenco and David Jacobson. After his release, he recorded his experiences on 53 videotapes. The tapes shown here, numbers 17 and 31, incidentally the only two tapes that may be shown outside Lebanon, are about the cultural, textual and sexual aspects of his imprisonment with the foreign hostages.