At around midnight on a winter night in 2023, Omar, a then 21-year-old member of a group of Afghan minesweepers tasked with protecting Green Berets in the region, heard a knock on his door.
His brother, eight years his junior, asked who it was. “The Taliban,” answered a man on the other side of the side of the gate, dressed in traditional Afghan garb, according to a transcript reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter from an interpreter who recounted Omar’s telling of events.
Omar was blindfolded and arrested. He didn’t return for more than two weeks, at which point he was found bloodied and bruised from beatings and drownings that saw him drift in and out of consciousness.
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Taliban forces tracked down Omar from a scene in Retrograde, Matthew Heineman’s acclaimed 2022 documentary providing an on-the-ground look at the U.S.’ withdrawal from Afghanistan a year earlier. In a close-up, the camera pans to him as another member of the National Mine Reduction Group, or NMRG, voices concerns of being hunted when he returns to civilian life. A clip from that segment of the documentary later spread like wildfire on TikTok in Afghanistan.
They “showed me Retrograde movie and said you have worked with foreign forces and also worked in the movie,” Omar said, according to the transcript prepared by a former Special Forces Interpreter for the 1208 Foundation, an organization that evacuates Afghans who cleared mines for U.S. forces in the region. “They found me through Retrograde movie and are still asking of me from villagers and my family members.”
A medical examination showed that Omar’s ribs were broken and lungs not properly working, among other internal injuries. A trip across the border into Pakistan and four surgeries later, he died.
Omar’s wife and child have been extracted from Afghanistan into another country where they’ll be safer from the threat of Taliban reprisals. And now, the family is suing the producers and distributors of the documentary, including Disney and National Geographic, faulting them for the slaying.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on April 24, alleges wrongful death, negligence and unfair business practices. It accuses the documentary’s producers and distributors of exploiting Omar’s identity for “commercial gain while knowingly placing him in grave danger” and failing to adhere to industry standards regarding the protection of people appearing in documentaries filmed in war zones. The estate seeks unspecified damages and names National Geographic, which produced the title as part of a joint agreement with Disney, Picturehouse and Our Time Projects, Heineman’s production banner.
Retrograde follows the final nine months of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. National Geographic quietly removed the documentary from its platforms last year after The Washington Post published a story exploring whether the feature put some of its subjects in danger. It no longer appears on Disney+ or Hulu. Last year, the Radio Television Digital News Association rescinded a prestigious journalism award to the documentary, citing background information it received over the “filmmaking process” following publication of the Post’s article.
In a statement at the time, Heineman and Retrograde producer Caitlin McNally said, “The U.S. government’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and the vengeful actions of the Taliban upon taking power — armed with detailed information identifying Afghans who worked with the U.S. government — led to the deaths of countless partners left behind. That is the tragic story that warrants attention. But any attempt to blame ‘Retrograde’ because the film showed faces of individuals in war zones — as has long been standard in ethical conflict reporting — would be deeply wrong.”
They’ve pointed to the U.S. military approving the film for release — a decision that could relate to the potential endangerment of Afghan contractors but not its personnel. “The bottom line is that both the military public affairs officers and the Green Berets approved the final version of the film for release, which included faces of NMRG,” they told the Post.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., a First Amendment lawyer who represents the duo, declined to comment.
THR, which held this story until Omar’s family was safely evacuated from Afghanistan, has reached out to Disney, National Geographic and Our Time Projects for comment.
Before the documentary was released, Heineman and McNally were warned multiple times by U.S. military personnel and former Green Berets that the mine-clearers would be endangered if they were shown in Retrograde, say Thomas Kasza and Dave, who was granted anonymity because he’s an active U.S. military member. They run the 1208 Foundation and extracted Omar’s family from Afghanistan. Kasza and Dave urged Heineman and the documentary’s producers, as well as Disney and National Geographic, to blur the faces of NMRG personnel but were met with resistance.
Retrograde was “pretty much a Hollywood hit list” for the Taliban, Kasza says.
Ahead of the documentary’s premiere in 2022, McNally said in a message to Dave that she was concerned about the safety of an Afghan man who appeared in the production, according to texts reviewed by THR. “We’ve been trying to get him out for weeks but haven’t been able to,” she wrote, saying that he’s “definitely in danger now.”
Nine others whose faces were shown in the documentary remain in hiding, according to the organization. One fled to Iran after its release but was deported soon after.
At the heart of the lawsuit: Allegations that Retrograde‘s creators ignored the safety of Afghan minesweepers whose faces were revealed in the production. It also brings a claim for deceptive business practices, accusing producers of failing to obtain Omar’s consent to use his likeness and identity without a proper release and misrepresenting the documentary as a “responsible portrayal of the Afghanistan withdrawal while knowingly endangering the lives of those depicted.”
“What Disney did here compounds the tragedy,” says John Uustal, a partner at Kelley Uustal whose firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of the estate of Omar, referring to the entertainment giant’s refusal to insist on blurring the faces and assist with evacuation efforts for the family.
Kasza and Dave contend that Disney could’ve facilitated the evacuation of minesweepers vulnerable to Taliban revenge killings but chose not to. There’s precedent, Kasza says, with the company in 2021 writing endorsement letters for roughly 300 Afghan cast and crew who worked on Homeland, which was produced by a TV arm of Fox.
Adds Dave: “Heineman’s thing was that the faces of despair tell the story. I’m not going to argue against that, but if those faces are being used so you can release a documentary and put some more awards on your shelf, that doesn’t mean that it’s right.”
