The world is on fire. Or at least that is the sense you get while watching ROJEK, Zayne Akyol’s new documentary in which the Montreal-based director sits down with jailed ISIS members. Oscillating between direct conversations with the accused terrorists and scenes of the postwar landscape in Syrian Kurdistan – including one sequence in which farmers battle a crop blaze – Akyol’s film is a deeply unsettling exploration of morality and terror that was recently named Canada’s official submission for the 2023 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (the category formerly known as the best foreign-language film).
Ahead of ROJEK’s Whistler Film Festival premiere this week – the film will also be available across the country via WFF’s online screening portal, from Dec. 4-17 – The Globe and Mail spoke with Akyol, who moved to Canada from Turkey as a child, about putting herself on the front lines of the war on terror.
How did you secure such prolonged one-on-one time with the ISIS members?
It’s been a long journey, but it started when I made my first film [2016′s Gulîstan, Land of Roses] about Kurdish fighters, so I had a connection there. I was going back and forth between Montreal to Iraqi Kurdistan, and there were people in charge who knew me. Access is still complex, especially after the war, so every time I needed permission to film something, I had to talk with hundreds of people – it’s not even a joke. We also stayed more than six months in the region – normally filmmakers or journalists don’t stay more than one month because it’s too dangerous. So, they saw our intention was deeper.
It must have helped that you also speak the language.
Yes, speaking Kurdish and Turkish. And I was very persistent, because once I had one permission, I was just pushing to have another and so on. Sometimes they’d throw us out, but I’d keep coming back and explaining my vision so I could get access to one jail, then another. We had three jails in the end.
Were you ever concerned for your safety?
In the jails, no. There were guards everywhere, and I had my own security with me. Outside the jail, it could be scary. We were in Raqqa a few months after it was liberated from ISIS, so it was dangerous. One time, we were in a spot that was beautiful, where people were trying to reconstruct their street, kids were running around playing. A great scene that showed life is taking over after the war. After five minutes of filming, our security came over to say he didn’t feel like it was safe. He didn’t have a reason, but people in war zones, they have strong intuition. I was mad and insisted we had 15 minutes to shoot, it didn’t make sense. But we wrapped everything, went to the car, and five minutes later in the exact spot, a bomb explodes.
Certainly documentarians, more so than feature narrative filmmakers, put themselves into fraught real-world situations. Have you always thought of yourself as a risk-taker, someone who prioritizes their work, their storytelling, over their own wellbeing?
A lot of people tell me I’m courageous, but it’s not about courage. It’s only when you’re past that feeling of being afraid that you’re courageous. I’m not. People who are living there, they’re courageous. I didn’t want to put myself in danger, but I had to make this film. I wanted to understand how someone can explain a violent act. You’re not born a bad person, a killer, you become that. How does that happen? It was never about putting myself in danger, but because of the subject, it was dangerous.
You take a unique approach with your interviews, because we never see details about what these men and women are accused of. You’re not putting a narrative on top of their dialogues.
That was a clear line for me. I didn’t want to judge them, they’re already in jail. My intention was more about how can I have a discussion with someone who thinks that I’m brainwashed, and I think that they’re brainwashed? I would try to listen instead of trying to find out what’s wrong with what they’re saying. Even if their truth doesn’t seem right to me at all.
With the Oscar submission, there’s bound to be discussion about how ‘Canadian’ a movie ROJEK is.
Obviously, I’m Canadian. I immigrated to Montreal just before I was five years old. But the question is very interesting because Canada has a lot of immigrants and each year we have more and more, so it’s a blend of culture. When you have a double culture like me, it’s just a richness for Canada. It’s a Canadian story if I’m Canadian, which I am. I grew up here. Canadian stories can be different.
It’s interesting because there was a similar case last year, when Canada submitted Jason Loftus’s Eternal Spring for the 2023 Oscars, and that was a doc focused on the Falun Gong in China. Previously, Canada submitted primarily French-language films set here.
Jason is actually a friend of mine, and his film is amazing. If you’re talking about someone born here and raised here, he’s a white guy [laughs]. And he made a film about a subject that doesn’t happen to take place in Canada, but it’s something that matters to him. It’s totally Canadian. We’re rich in diversity and culture.
ROJEK is available to stream across the country via the Whistler Film Festival from Dec. 4-17 (whistlerfilmfestival.com).
This interview has been condensed and edited.