My Kidnapper

In 2003, world news was dominated by the disappearance and, as it turned out later, kidnapping of eight backpackers in Colombia. They spent 101 days locked up deep in the impenetrable forest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the diary that was published later, the British Mark Henderson recorded his experiences: feelings of incomprehension, fear of death, and constantly oscillating back and forth between hoping for the best and dreading the worst. Eleven months after he was freed, he received an e-mail from his guard during the ordeal, the man with whom he had bonded on some level despite the circumstances. Subsequently, the two began to correspond in secret. Six years after the kidnapping, Henderson and three of the other kidnapping victims, two Israelis and a German, decided to return to Colombia for a meeting with his kidnapper. This film is an account of that trip as well as a reconstruction of the 101 days that changed the lives of these people for good. His identity concealed, Antonio the kidnapper makes an appearance to express regret and to talk about the ideals of the guerilla movement ELN (National Liberation Army). Henderson does his best to summon up some understanding, but he also sees how little good has come of their actions.