Jihad Rehab: "AG's Story"

Back in 2019, I was approached by BUCK to direct, design, and animate one of four animated segments for Meg Smaker's feature documentary, Jihad Rehab. The film documents an art therapy program in Saudi Arabia for former prisoners of Guantanamo Bay. Each segment was based on a piece of artwork created by one of the accused – in my case, a man named Abu Ghanim.

Meg ultimately decided to go in a different direction with the film's animation, and none of the original four segments was used in the final film. For that reason, the version here doesn't include any actual audio of AG's interview, but I've kept the subtitles of the original recording.

The breakdown of BUCK's collaboration with Meg was a big disappointment after so much effort and so many late nights – I even wrote a paper about it!  That said, the final documentary has had a rough go of it since its Sundance premiere, so perhaps this one was destined for disappointment regardless. Having never seen anything more than the 2 minutes of audio I was provided, I can't speak to the controversy, but I'm still proud of the work I put into this piece as a standalone.