Rojek is Canada’s submission for best international feature film for next year’s Oscars, Telefilm announced Thursday.
The documentary from Montreal director Zaynê Akyol is constructed around interviews with incarcerated members of ISIS, the Sunni jihadist group that has spent years fighting in Syria and Iraq hoping to establish a transnational Islamic state based on sharia law.
Akyol’s previous documentary, Gulîstan, Land of Roses, told the stories of women fighting against ISIS. After making the film, Akyol learned of the deaths of several of the women in the film, which she says led her to create Rojek.
A shortlist of 15 films will be announced by the Academy on Dec. 21,
