The two Northwest Baltimore County natives met at New York University, growing to become co-workers, best friends, groomsmen at each other’s wedding — even godparents to each other’s children.
Sig Libowitz agreed to star in fellow film student Adam Rodgers’ thesis film, “Grandparents.” The movie earned a spot as a finalist for the NYU Director’s Prize, and from there, the two launched into Hollywood careers that would include spots on award-winning TV shows “The Sopranos” and “Law & Order,” a student Emmy Award and nominations for Academy Awards.
“He knew all the people I’d gone out with because they were just a couple years younger,” Libowitz said of their time growing up. “We probably went to all the same places, probably passed each other a dozen times. I can’t believe we didn’t know each other.”
On their most recent return to Baltimore, the two pulled together a web of award-winning filmmakers, movie stars, law experts, family and friends to film perhaps the first drama about Guantanamo Bay, “The Response.” In the movie, three judges at the base serve in tribunals as judge, jury and attorney, determining whether detainees — who have no attorney and don’t know the evidence against them — are set free or jailed indefinitely.
After Libowitz had scored recurring roles on “Law & Order” and “The Sopranos,” he left his film career a few years ago to chase another dream: law. But it was then that he would find the idea for one of his best films.
Libowitz earned a scholarship to attend the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, enrolling in spring 2006 in professor Michael Greenberger’s class on homeland security and the law of counterterrorism.
Greenberger did not teach from a textbook. The material he taught was taking place at Guantanamo Bay as the country felt its way through a world after Sept. 11.
Three nameless military judges run combatant status review tribunals — not to determine guilt or innocence, but status as enemy combatants. Detainees cannot see their accuser, don’t know the evidence against them and are not allowed a defense attorney.
Judges decide whether it is safe to release the detainees, or whether they should be classified as enemy combatants and held at Guantanamo indefinitely.
Greenberger taught from transcripts of the tribunals, and to Libowitz, they were the perfect basis for a movie.
“Sig got very excited and came up to me and said, ‘I think there’s a movie in this. Do you think I should try to do something?’ ” Greenberger recalled. “And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ ”
“What is going on there is so dramatic,” Libowitz said. “We’re not talking about a murder in Chicago. You’re talking about some action that may have taken place in Afghanistan. It’s not a place where you can send a detective to go dig up proof.”
While Libowitz’s classmates turned in a final term paper, he made a movie. Rodgers described it as “ ‘Law & Order’ through a cracked mirror” because of the altered justice system used at Guantanamo.
The movie stars big-time actors Peter Riegert, from “Animal House”; Kate Mulgrew, from “Star Trek: Voyager”; and Aasif Mandvi, from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”
Rodgers was first to come on board, as director. Then the two recruited Richard Chisolm, an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer and Baltimore resident, and Dennis Towns, another Emmy Award winner and Baltimore resident, who did the sound work.
They shot the 30-minute film in three days in a wing of Maryland’s law school.
Karen Rothenberg, dean of the law school and a self-described frustrated actress, called the movie an educational vehicle that informs and entertains about complex issues at Guantanamo. She helped secure funding for the project from the France-Merrick Foundation, which supports the school’s Linking Law & Arts program.
Students worked as extras in the film, and some had fortuitously spent time at Guantanamo. Sandra Goldberg, 26, traveled there twice while working as a paralegal before attending law school. The Montgomery County native lent authenticity to the film, making sure the military uniforms and courtroom matched those at Guantanamo. She eventually became an associate producer.
“This was a very Baltimore-centric enterprise,” said Joann Rodgers, Adam Rodgers’ mother, who works as a top spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins Medicine. “It was fate that drove them to meet and find in each other not only mutually admirable talents, but values and enjoyment of each as great friends.”
Libowitz said the movie has gained interest from several TV companies but declined to name them. Venable, the law firm on Pratt Street where he now works, will host a private screening and panel discussion next week.
