Young Turkish-Norwegian Filmmaker in Search of True Islam?

The issue of Islam and Islamists is one of the main concerns of today's world, which has been addressed multiple times in various documentaries. The latest of these is a documentary titled 'Islam of Men - Islam and Masculinity' (produced in Norway, with its world premiere at the Gothenburg Festival) by young Turkish filmmaker Nafiseh Ozkal Lorentzen. Lorentzen, who lives in Norway, has several controversial documentaries often centered around Islam in her portfolio (including one about Muslim homosexuals) and in her latest film, she attempts to portray an image of Islam that she claims is lost in Western media. At the beginning of the film, we see her interview with a radical Muslim in Pakistan, where the cleric states that girls mature very early and to prevent sin, they should be married off early. We do not hear the continuation of his words, as the filmmaker's voice comes in over the scene, expressing her fatigue with these stereotypical statements about Islam and her desire to find another face of Islam that she prefers. Therefore, she seeks out three individuals in Bangladesh, Kuwait, and Turkey. In Bangladesh, we encounter the activities of a man who is trying to raise awareness in a closed community about the harms of early child marriage. The filmmaker accompanies this man to meet a girl who married at twelve and now, at eighteen, has two children. From the very beginning, the filmmaker's perspective is not distant, and she consistently tries to convey her viewpoint through the Islamic lens she favors to the audience. As a result, the individuals she follows in the film become her heroes and are praised. She is enamored with the words of this Bangladeshi man (in scenes that are sometimes very long, where many of these statements could have been shorter) and even captures him bathing in an unrelated scene. The second individual is a doctor in Kuwait who has created Islamic versions of Batman and Superman with 99 names of God. Each of these statues, which have also gained attention and praise from Barack Obama, represents a country: including Jalil for Iran, who is playing with fire, and a metaphorical reference is made in a dialogue between the filmmaker and the creator of these statues to 'an Iranian playing with fire.' The third person is a political activist from Turkey—the filmmaker's homeland—who leads a movement called 'Anti-Capitalist Islam.' The filmmaker refers to this as the closest perspective to her own from the outset and follows the activities and statements of this group: discussing another form of Islam that practices tolerance and reconciliation and advocates for the oppressed (even if the oppressed is not Muslim). Nafiseh Ozkal Lorentzen's documentary, without the filmmaker being fully aware, has turned into a promotional piece that seeks to advocate for a religion and ideology in a manner that she prefers. Most enduring documentaries in cinema are made from a neutral perspective, with the filmmaker merely becoming an observer who shares realities about a subject with the audience. However, 'Islam of Men' starts with a stance from the very first minute. This filmmaker insists that Western media only reflects 'terrorist Islam.' She also summarizes the problems of Islam primarily in men from the outset of her film. Every filmmaker is naturally free to promote their perspective, but such insistence on a position not only fails to engage the audience with the filmmaker but can also have the opposite effect. Ms. Lorentzen's film is an uncinematic effort and more akin to a news-television style that is combative from the start and seeks to change the world without leaving any space for the possibility of error in her viewpoint.