For Friday release Director talks about Bhurro documentary Chronicle Staff Writer At the recent Islamabad premiere of the documentary 'Bhutto,' screaming crowds ignited and toppled garbage cans. A good sign, according to San Francisco film director Duane Baughman. It meant that the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's struggle to bring democracy to Pakistan wasn't in vain. 'It's a testament to her legacy that nearly three years after her assassination, there is freedom of speech and political expression,' he said. It's also a reminder of how controversial Bhutto continues to be as the first female leader of a Muslim nation. During her two terms in office, devotees credited her with eradicating polio, building schools and all-female police stations and bringing fiber optics, cell phones and CNN to the country. During her stints in solitary confinement and an eight-year exile in Dubai, detractors accused her of everything from corruption to aiding the Taliban and orchestrating the murder of her brother.went off at a political rally in Pakistan in De Francisco-based political direct mail firm was in talks to possibly help her run for a third term. Instead, he wound up getting the first and only on-camera family interviews following her death. During the project, Baughman unearthed 67 hours of Bhutto's audiotaped interviews stored in a biographer's closet. The never-before-heard tapes allowed Bhutto to narrate the documentary. 'She pronounces her own death -- seven years before she talks about feeling her body rise and walking with the martyrs,' Baughman said. 'She feels no bullet can hit her.' 'Bhutto' was an official selection at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and was chosen as one of 2010's five best documentaries by the International Documentary Association. A pleasant surprise for Baughman, who spent three years and three million dollars to make 'Bhutto,' his first film. He wrote the outline in his de-facto office, a Peet's Coffee in San Francisco, and spent nearly three months filming in Pakistan. The documentary includes interviews with Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, now the president of Pakistan; her children; exiled former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State. Last April, as Baughman was wrapping up the film, the United Nations finished its investigation of Bhutto's assassination. The report pointed a stern finger at Musharraf and his administration for not providing Bhutto with adequate security, approving fire hoses to wash the assassination scene, and destroying forensic evidence, Baughman said. In the years since, Baughman can see political corruption ebbing somewhat in Pakistan. 'Today, I think the government and military are working more in partnership than at any time before,' Baughman said. 'Bhutto's husband is in his third year as president, and if he makes it two more years and finishes a five-year term, he'll be the first civilian president in Pakistan's history to do so.' In the beginning of the film, Bhutto explains why she devoted her life to avenging her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the first democratically elected prime minister who was overthrown, tortured and killed by his hand-picked Army chief. As a young girl her father pointed to the laborers working on Bhutto land and told her their sweat was the price they paid for her education. After attending Harvard and Oxford universities, Bhutto came back to Pakistan to make good on her promise to her father that she would serve the people of Pakistan to repay the debt she owed them for their sweat. 'She was one of the most courageous women leaders of our time, working to send a message to the rest of the world that Islam is a tolerant and open religion,' Baughman said. Baughman is contemplating his next documentary, which might be about the Rwandan genocide. Meanwhile, he's letting his creativity regenerate. 'I've adopted an elephant in Thailand,' he said. 'I'm going to visit it and I may stay for a while.' 