Life at Guantanamo Bay to be revealed in Channel 4 docu-drama

Channel 4 is to bring the experiences of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to life in a new docu-drama by the director of Nine Songs and 24-Hour Party People.

The Road To Guantanamo, by the award-winning director Michael Winterbottom, is based on first hand interviews with the Tipton Three, the British prisoners released from the camp in March 2004.

The film tells the story of four friends who set off from Tipton in the West Midlands in September 2001 to attend a wedding in Pakistan. It was two and a half years before three of them, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, returned home. Their story will be told through interviews, archive material and dramatic recreation.

Kevin Lygo, Channel 4's director of television, said: "We did research about what viewers think about current affairs and they all talked about our David Kelly drama [The Government Inspector] and The Hamburg Cell [about the World Trade Centre bombers]. It's great that Channel 4 contributes to the current affairs debate through our dramas. We are absolutely delighted to be working with such an original and innovative talent as Michael Winterbottom."

He added that The Road To Guantanamo, which will start filming later this summer and be broadcast in the autumn, would cost under £2m to make.

Mr Winterbottom's 2003 film In This World, about two Afghan refugees' journey across Asia and Europe to the UK, won the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear.

As part of an additional £13.5m investment in drama announced this year, Channel 4 has also commissioned a one-off drama about binge drinking, Legless, from the makers of Queer as Folk. Mr Lygo also announced a new factual series, The Unteachables, in which teachers attempt to tackle troublesome teenagers in a normal school setting.