Project Detail

The Hamburg Cell

Synopsis

"When the world talks about the men who carried out this holy operation they will be talking about the men who changed the course of history," exclaims a senior Al Qaeda member in this fictional docu-drama from director Antonia Bird. Charting the planning and execution of the World Trade Center attacks by a handful of Muslim fundamentalists led by Mohamed Atta (Kamel), The Hamburg Cell is a devastatingly powerful work that puts faces and personalities to the men who carried out the attacks against the US on the fateful morning of September 11th.

Based on a wide range of documentary evidence, from court transcriptions to video footage, this simmering yet understated little movie focuses on Lebanese student Ziad Jarrah (Saleh) as he's transformed from rich-boy student at the University of Applied Science in Hamburg to jihadist hijacker of United Airlines flight 93 (which crashed en route to the White House shortly after simultaneous attacks struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon).

It's a difficult journey. Immersing us in the secretive, clandestine world of these fundamentalists as they indoctrinate new recruits, train at terrorist camps in Afghanistan and learn to fly at an aviation school in Florida, Bird forces a disturbing intimacy with men destined to become mass murderers.

Details

Year: 2005
Type of project: Features
Running time: 100 mins
Format: S16mm
Director: Antonia Bird
Producer: David Aukin, George Carey
Co-Producer: David Aukin, George Carey
Editor: St John O' Rourke
Screenwriter: Ronan Bennett
Director of Photography: Florian Hoffmeister
Sound: Tim Albarn
Composer: Adrian Maral
Principal cast: Karim Saleh, Agni Tsangaridou, Omar Berdouni, Adnan Marai

Genre

Woman Director Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Mentorn Productions

43 Whitfield Street
London W1T 4HA
UK

T+44 (0)20 7258 6800

Sales Company

Channel 4 International

124 Horseferry Road
London SW1P 2TX
UK

T+44 (0)20 7306 8463

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

Set and shot along the East coast of England, from Kent through Lincolnshire, to Scotland, CHORK follows fifteen-year-old Kit and eleven-year-old Ani as they leave their foster home and trek across the coastline in hopes of a brighter future. With the police in pursuit and a national search underway, Kit must use all her determination and wits to protect Ani and fulfil their mission.

Drama

Black Church Bay

Director: Rhys Marc Jones

Year: 2026

In a remote Welsh coastal village, the disappearance of an openly-gay sixth form student disrupts the delicate balance of local life for one deputy head teacher, exposing long-buried secrets and threatening to tear the community apart.

Drama

A Time Before

Director: Leo Metcalf

Year: 2024

Olly sifts through his memories searching to understand why he is the way he is. The narrative swings between two contrasting worlds: his memories of his first years, captured by his childhood drawings, and surreal underwater live-action scenes representing his dreams. We witness fragmented memories of a torn family - an abusive father, a mother whose memory seems faded, and a sister, Sally, encouraging her little brother to escape through imagination and dreams. As memory and fantasy blur, The Time Before becomes a meditation on the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and what is lost in the telling. Official Selection Aesthetica Film Festival 2024

Docufiction Drama Experimental Sci-Fi