Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A feisty matriarch battles the system alongside an aging idealistic lefty lawyer in order to [fill in topical cause here]. The logline for German docu-drama “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush” (2022, 2 hrs) sounds like something you’ve probably seen on screens big and small hundreds of times before, but nevertheless journeyman director Andreas Dresen gives the rickety old structure a fresh coat of paint. Murat is incarcerated in the U.S.’ Guantanamo detention camp. Desperate to help her son, Rabiye Kurnaz, a housewife and loving mother from Bremen, goes to the police, notifies authorities and almost despairs at their impotence, until she discovers Bernhard Docke. The reserved, level-headed human rights lawyer and the temperamental Turkish mother — now fighting side-by-side for Murat’s release.

German with English subs.
Free Entrance.