British broadcasters are making a series of fictionalised accounts of the Iraq war that will include a controversial Channel 4 dramatisation of soldiers abusing prisoners.
Screenwriter Tony Marchant's new drama, The Mark of Cain, which began filming this month in Tunisia, draws on stories such as that of Fusilier Gary Bartlam, who was arrested in 2003 after trying to develop a roll of film that included trophy photographs of abused detainees. The photos showed Iraqis hanging from a forklift truck, being stood upon and posing in sexual positions. Bartlam and three colleagues from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were found guilty of abuse at Camp Breadbasket, Basra, by a court martial in Osnabruck, Germany, last year.
Actor Leo Gregory, who played Rolling Stone Brian Jones in the film Stoned, will appear alongside Gerard Kearns, who starred in the TV show Shameless, in the programme, which is likely to provoke debate when it is screened later this year. The Ministry of Defence has been refused access to the script.
Marchant was keen to stress that The Mark of Cain's depiction of British soldiers beating hooded, restrained Iraqi prisoners and the taking of 'trophy photographs' was based on 'about eight' real-life accounts, and not just that of Bartlam.
The story will follow the actions of a group of soldiers, two of whom are played by Gregory and Kearns, who are serving in the fictional Northdale Rifles Regiment in Basra in 2003. It will tackle the dilemmas they face as the war forces them to choose between loyalty to their regiment and their own morals.
Marchant said: 'It's a rites-of-passage film about these two 18-year-olds who go on this journey. What's interesting about soldiering is this thing called moral courage. If you're asked to become involved with something you think is wrong, when the rest of the group is doing it and you don't do it, you can be ostracised by your section and your life becomes at risk in a very real way. As more of these stories come out, it's more important than ever to understand what leads to the atrocities.'
Channel 4 is not the only broadcaster to have seen the dramatic potential of the turbulent political climate in the Middle East. BBC Films is in advanced talks with financial backers over Embeds, the tale of an embedded US newspaper journalist's travails in Iraq.
Kosminsky, who wrote and directed the Bafta-nominated The Government Inspector, a drama centred on the affair of David Kelly, who committed suicide, told The Observer: 'I think people are struggling to understand why [the war] has gone as horribly as it has and why people in the US and UK supported the war on a false prospectus. Journalism has a part to play in that.'
BBC Films chief David Thompson, who was at the Cannes Film Festival late last month to secure funds for the project, said he felt that 'war was sadly top of the agenda in terms of world issues'. He continued: 'Naturally, films want to be dealing with these powerful themes affecting people's lives.'
