A group of men trained by al-Qaeda are transferred from Guantanamo to the world’s first rehabilitation center for “terrorists” located in Saudi Arabia. Filmed over three years, with unprecedented access, this film is a complex and nuanced exploration of the men we have heard so much about but never heard from. 

The UnRedacted will be introduced by Cara Pilson from The Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University and following the screening please join us for a special Q&A with the film’s director Meg Smaker who will be joined by Ammar Basha a local Yemeni filmmaker for a conversation. 

“Not the best documentary of the year. The best film of the year. Full stop. Meg has created a masterpiece. Don’t let anyone tell you how to feel about it; until you see it for yourself. This film will enlarge your soul.” ~ Michael Dunaway @Paste Magazine 

“There have been some high-profile criticisms that Smaker would dare, as a white person, to tell the stories of these men. Don’t listen. See this transcendent film and decide for yourself whether she did right by them.” – Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

Our screening of The UnRedacted is presented with

Before becoming a filmmaker, Meg Smaker served as a firefighter for over a half decade. She spent almost 10 years living and working in the Middle East, five of them in Yemen, where she learned Arabic and studied Islamic culture while teaching firefighting to Yemeni men. As a filmmaker, Meg likes to explore controversial subjects from unorthodox viewpoints. Her films have won numerous awards, including Best Short Documentary at SXSW (South By Southwest) and a Student Academy Award. Her film, “Boxeadora,” received critical acclaim as “one of the best boxing films of all time” by Paste Magazine. Meg was also featured in the Hollywood Reporter’s “Next Gen” issue as one of the film industry’s most promising new nonfiction filmmakers, and in 2021 Filmmaker Magazine named her one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” Meg’s most recent film, The UnRedacted (Jihad Rehab) – her debut feature length documentary – premiered at Sundance in 2022 to rave reviews from film critics. Meg received an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University, Graduate Certificate from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a BA with honors in Political, Legal, and Economic Analysis (PLEA) from Mills College.

Ammar Basha was born in Yemen in 1980. He earned his MFA in Cinematic Arts at the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts “RSICA” in Aqaba-Jordan. Basha’s political documentaries have advocated for the expansion of human rights in Yemen for over 10 years. Basha is also a writer and director of fiction films. Basha entered the US in 2021 as an Artist Protection Fund Fellow. He recently taught an Independent Study Workshop on advocacy films at Wake Forest University. He is currently working on his dream project, a feature film titled ” The Handsome Jew” depicting a novel written By Ali Al Muqri.

Please visit our accessibility page for more information. Beyond the description, trailer and quoted reviews on our website, other sources of information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media and IMDb. We encourage you to research our films at your own informational interest level via the internet.