Sig Libowitz was a law student at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he took a seminar titled “Homeland Security and the Law of Counterterrorism” with Professor Michael Greenberger.

He was so intrigued by it that he enlisted director Adam Rodgers and cinematographer Richard Chisolm to produce a film called The Response, using the real transcripts of the hearings.

“When I read the transcripts of what was really going on down in Guantanamo, I thought, this is amazing. Before reading the cases, I thought I had a pretty good sense of what was going on down there. I figured I read the papers, I watch the news— but I was just stunned,” says Libowitz. “It led me down a path, both of curiosity and creativity. Then as I dug deeper, I saw that the issues and the people weren’t nearly as clear-cut or onesided as I was told to believe. That led to investigating the rationale of both sides, of all sides, because there are more than just two, and I saw that we don’t get anywhere by simply demonizing each other. These are the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves: Who are we as a society and how do we want to respond to the horrific acts of terror that took place on September 11th? Because how we respond determines who we are and, perhaps more importantly, who we want to be.”

The film was shown at Congress earlier this week. Here’s a trailer: