Frotcast Bonus: Alex Gibney On ‘The Forever Prisoner’

What’s up, Frot fans. This week I’m talking to Alex Gibney, who you may know from one of his million documentaries. He won an Oscar for Taxi the Dark Side, he made the Enron movie, and a whole bunch of them since then. He makes like one or two documentaries every year, it’s insane. Anyway, his latest is out on HBO this week, and it’s called The Forever Prisoner.

It’s mostly about the CIA’s torture program and what a comedy of errors it was. (One of the main interview subjects in it is actually Daniel Jones, the character Adam Driver plays in The Report. Remember when I demanded you all watch that one? Yeah). It all started with this prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, who was taken to Thailand for interrogation and was actually giving up good information to the FBI handlers talking to him, one being Ali Soufani, just based on regular interrogation work — building rapport, showing the guy what they knew, and all the normal stuff police and prosecutors usually do. But then the CIA got involved, and they used these kooky contractors who had this crazy torture plan, and everything kind of went sideways from there. Anyway, I think that’s mostly all you need to know in order to understand the interview.

ALSO, we’re going to be doing a live episode of Pod Yourself A Gun in San Francisco at SF Sketchfest in January. It’s going to be January 15th at Pianofight theater. Here’s the link to buy tickets! Come see Matt sing songs on stage or whatever!