It bears repeating, but the expectation—from Smaker and others—was that if anyone would find the film offensive, it would be a sort of self-described patriotic conservative who is disinclined to empathize with alleged jihadists: even those who were arrested while underage, maintain their innocence, and were subject to torture at Guantanamo Bay.

But conservatives aren’t canceling Jihad Rehab. Liberals are.

“The bottom line is such,” wrote Jude Chehab, a Lebanese-American filmmaker, in a review of Jihad Rehab that criticized Sundance for daring to feature it. “When I, a practising Muslim woman, say that this film is problematic, my voice should be stronger than a white woman saying that it isn’t. Point blank.”

Indeed, this was the visceral component of the torrent of criticism that has greeted Smaker: She is a white woman creating a film about a religion and a culture not her own. (That she has lived in the Middle East for years, enmeshed herself in the culture, learned Arabic, and gained unprecedented access to people we would be better off trying to understand apparently makes little difference.)

“As an alumnus of the festival and recipient of a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Program, I am deeply disheartened,” wrote Assia Boundaoui, another critic.