Face 2 Face With David Peck

Michelle and I talked about her new film The Way Out and Islamophobia, the love of a Mother for her daughter, trauma, fear, religious ideology and why sometimes it’s easier to know less. In The Way Out, co-directors Michelle Shephard and David York, take an intimate journey with the mother (given the pseudonym Saeeda for her own protection), from Canada to Europe and Turkey and back again, as they work various channels seeking what a CSIS officer calls the “exfiltration” of Amina from inside the so-called Islamic State and into the custody of Canadian officials. Michelle Shephard stood among the crumbling remains of New York City’s World Trade Center on the night of 9/11 and asked, “Why?” So began her journalistic journey as the Toronto Star’s National Security reporter, looking for answers in the streets of Mogadishu, Sanaa, to the mountains of Waziristan, refugee camps in Dadaab and Peshawar, the corridors of power in Washington and Ottawa, 200 km north of the Arctic Circle and flying to the world’s most fa