“Sundance wants diversity, but it doesn’t want diversity of thought.”

Throughout my day today — at the gym, on my way home, in the shower — I listened to Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast #300 — A Tale of Cancellation. It was a riveting, incredible and frankly incredulous story, for so many reasons.

The episode is a 3-hour conversation with Meg Smaker, the director of the documentary ‘The UnRedacted’ (previously named ‘Jihad Rehab’). This is her first feature film which follows a group of men trained by al-Qaeda who are transferred from Guantanamo and sent to the world’s first rehabilitation centre for “terrorists” located in Saudi Arabia. The film premiered at Sundance this year and received rave reviews from film critics, and was also invited to screen at numerous festivals including South By Southwest and San Francisco Documentary Festival, where Meg Smaker was to be awarded the prestigious Vanguard Award.

However, an unrelenting campaign claiming that the documentary was Islamaphobic and that she had no standing to tell a story about a religion and a culture not her own sparked a huge controversy, which resulted in Sundance publicly apologising for showing the film. This was followed by the Executive Producer of the film, who had previously stated it to be “freaking brilliant,” publicly disavowing the film.

The incredulous thing about this entire controversy was the fact that the majority of criticism and outrage against the film were made by those who had not actually watched the film. The situation was equivalent to people spending 2 seconds reading a headline, then purporting to know exactly what the entire article was about and spouting an opinion about it, but with far more dire consequences than just harmless ignorance. People who had worked on the film no longer wanted to be associated with it and asked (or were pressured) to withdraw their names from the credits. The shattering impact of the de-platforming of her film left Meg Smaker depressed, suicidal and close to broke. Most festivals who had previously invited her to screen her film withdrew their invitation, as well as the award. All but one — New Zealand’s very own Doc Edge festival.

As a Kiwi, I was proud by association to hear that Doc Edge stood their ground when everyone else around them crumbled. Doc Edge’s co-director Dan Shanan told the New York Times: “What happened at Sundance was not good. Film festivals must hold to their belief in their role.”

“They selected the film because it is a great film and then didn’t back her up when it became controversial. When we heard how she had been targeted and then unfairly treated we wanted to give the film and her the premiere they deserve.”

In the podcast episode, Meg Smaker shared the unreasonable and financially burdensome hoops that Sundance put her and her team through after they were presented with a letter denouncing the documentary by more than 230 filmmakers (most had not seen the film). Prominent documentary executives said Sundance’s demands were without precedent. So it was refreshing to hear Doc Edge’s very reasonable and rational response to a Professor at San Fransisco University who wrote to them to complain about their programming:

I’m kind of disappointed that your festival decided to program the now renamed ‘Jihad Rehab’ — seems pretty disrespectful to the Muslim community.

Doc Edge replied:

Have you watched the film? If so, we’d love to hear which part of it is disrespectful to the Muslim community.

Her response:

I haven’t watched the film but many members of the Muslim community, especially the filmmakers, have, and have been critical of it.I think you/your team must be aware of the controversy and the discourse. And the criticism from the community members seem valid and thoughtful. So I’m listening to them and I’m respecting their opinion. So that’s why I’m so disappointed that this film is in your lineup.

The ka-pow:

We highly suggest you watch the film before expressing any disappointment with our decision to screen it. We know that many many people who have commented on the film haven’t seen it either. We are more than happy to discuss any concerns with anyone who’s actually watched the film.

A perfectly reasonable response that we would expect in today’s “free” world, right? What I find incredulous is that out of so many prominent film festivals which are probably headed up by intelligent and rational people, only one managed to stay level-headed and keep to its values, instead of succumbing to knee-jerk reactions to appease “woke” public outcries.

This story was also fascinating because it lays bare the concerns about cancel culture, wokeism, and cultural appropriation which I have kept my eye on for a while. Those who boycotted Meg Smaker’s film claimed that her “race” as a white woman disqualified her from telling the story of Arab men. This is despite the fact that she has lived in the Middle East for years, enmeshed herself in the culture, learned Arabic, and gained unprecedented access to people we would be better off trying to understand.

Aside from this tragedy, the story of Meg Smaker’s personal life was also curious and unbelievable. From being kidnapped in Colombia by a gang known for decapitating its victims, witnessing 9/11 as a firefighter in her early twenties and travelling to the Middle East in an effort to understand the questions raised by these events, to ending up teaching firefighting in Yemen — Meg Smaker has navigated an incredible life that required resilience and tenacity to no end.

For me, the most astonishing takeaway from her life was that on the other side of these challenges, she has come out with an amazingly compassionate and empathetic heart, and unbreakable integrity. Spending time with her kidnappers, she realised that there were rarely ‘bad’ people; only people driven to do bad things due to circumstance, environment and other motivations. Unable to be taken seriously at first, she realised that the Yemeni firefighters she was trying to teach were uneducated and believed simply what they had been told about women by their culture and society. Even on reflecting on her present circumstance and her Executive Producer’s 180 degree betrayal, she did not wish any harm or any form of “cancellation” on her. Meg Smaker understood that the outrage directed towards her film by those who had not seen it was actually outrage about 20 years of the Muslim community being terrorised in the United States. Which is why wide distribution of this film is needed more than ever.

As said by Lorraine Ali, a television critic for The Los Angeles Times (who is Muslim by the way, if that gives her any “standing”):

“[The film was] a humanizing journey through a complex emotional process of self reckoning and accountability… the film took pains to understand the culture these men came from and molded them. It does a disservice to throw away a film that a lot of people should see.”

I’m hoping that Meg Smaker’s feature in Sam Harris’ podcast is a turning point, and that I’ll get to see the film for myself soon. Until then, I’ll reserve any reactions to the film, disappointment or otherwise.

In today’s fast-paced world where attention is such a scarce resource, I see this as a cautionary tale against jumping to conclusions, assuming ill intent, and speaking too much while not listening enough. If you made it this far, thank you for turning away from the infinite scroll long enough to read through my musings. If you’d like to indulge in more long-form content, of course I recommend:

• Sam Harris’ Making Sense podcast #300 — A Tale of Cancellation
• Sundance Liked Her Documentary on Terrorism, Until Muslim Critics Didn’t — The New York Times article by Michael Powell