The most controversial documentary film in the world last year – and despite the storm it created, one of the least seen – will be screened for the first time in Australia in Castlemaine in early May.
The film – originally titled Jihad Rehab, but since re-titled as The Unredacted – had a wildly controversial premiere screening a year ago at the high-profile American Sundance Film Festival.
Shot over three years by American filmmaker Meg Smaker, the film tells the story of a group of men trained by Al-Quaeda who were transferred from Guantanamo to the world’s first rehabilitation centre for ‘terrorists’ in Saudi Arabia.
Filmed with unprecedented access, Unredacted is a complex and nuanced exploration of the men we have heard so much about but never heard from.
But even before The Unredacted was shown at Sundance – as Jihad Rehab – it had caused a huge furore in the international film-making world.
After its premiere, critics accused Smaker of cultural overreach and Islamophobia, although some openly admitted that they had not seen the film and didn’t need to see it.
In the wake of the firestorm, Sundance’s leadership apologised for programming The Unredacted, despite earlier praising the film, which had already received numerous positive reviews.
Inside the Shameful Cancellation of Jihad Rehab – National Review, NY Times Best Selling Author/Journalist and Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker Sebastian Junger.
As a result, Smaker found both her film and herself ‘cancelled’ and attacked daily on social media – a particularly destabilising turn of events since Smaker had assumed she would be attacked by the Right in the US for exactly the opposite reason: because the film boldly humanises alleged terrorists and gives a voice to men who were held in Guantanamo for 15 years and suffered torture, including waterboarding.
More than a year later, Smaker is still navigating the complex waters of representation, and still fighting to get her film in front of audiences.
In the fall-out, senior Sundance staff resigned, a principal financial backer – Abigail Disney (of the famous Disney family) – publicly disowned her involvement after earlier privately praising the film, and others involved demanded to be removed from the on-screen credits.
Among a raft of ‘offences’, Smaker – who after long periods working as a professional firefighter in Afghanistan and Yemen, speaks Yemeni-Arabic – was accused of endangering the five men who agreed to take part in the film, of being a willing tool of the Saudi and US Government; of assuming and perpetuating the men’s guilt.
Smaker – who will visit Castlemaine for the screening and will take part in a post-film panel discussion and audience Q&A – has answered every accusation made and fiercely defends her right to make the film.
“Partly because of what happened on 9/11, I wanted to know more about the people who had killed so many of my fellow firefighters because Yemen had become my second home and people there, my second family, “ she says.
“So who were these ‘evil’ people? Throughout all the years living in Yemen and the Middle East, I had never met one.
“I was torn. As a firefighter, I saw America as a victim, but living in Yemen, I also saw the US as a perpetrator of violence.”
Due to Ms Smaker’s prior commitments, it was not possible to included The Unredacted in the 2023 Castlemaine Documentary Festival (June 16 – 19), but festival organisers are proud to be able to screen this remarkable film in advance of this year’s festival, exemplifying as it does, CDoc’s 2023 mission line: No one has the last word.
The film will be screened at 7pm on Wednesday May 3 at the Theatre Royal Castlemaine. The screening will be followed by an interview and Q&A with director, Meg Smaker.
Tickets at: cdocff.com.au/2022-festival/theunredacted
