Q review – freedom, lies and transgressions in emotional fallout from a secretive Muslim women’s movement

Jude Chehab turns the camera on the maelstrom – and slow liberation – after her mother’s expulsion from controversial group al-Qubaysiat

Opening the Pandora’s box of her family secrets, Jude Chehab makes a complex and moving documentary debut that unfolds both as an investigation and as a kind of intergenerational therapy. For decades, her mother, Hiba, was devoted to al-Qubaysiat, a highly secretive female Muslim order that operates in Lebanon and Syria. Chehab’s grandmother Doria had also been a follower, and the film-maker herself was initiated into the group as a young girl. For the two older women, this all-female religious movement inspired feelings of solidarity and freedom, yet al-Qubaysiat also demanded absolute submission to the leader, known to followers as the Anisa, or the Teacher. And when Hiba was expelled for unclear transgressions, her world fell apart.

In contrast to other documentaries on controversial organisations, Chehab’s film doesn’t sensationalise the tactics of indoctrination. In fact, information about the group only comes in bits and pieces, as revealed by Hiba and Doria. This storytelling choice lifts the focus away from the unseen but powerful Anisa, focusing instead on the emotional maelstrom endured by Hiba and the rest of Chehab’s family. Chehab might have thought of her camera as a potent tool for catharsis, yet when she urged her father to speak on the al-Qubaysiat, his answers were not as scathing as she had hoped, as if he had gone off an imaginary script.

Hiba, too, doesn’t fit into simplistic expectations of a victim. Her wounds from banishment are still raw, but she could not help but grieve audibly over the Anisa’s death. However, a slow liberation has grown in her; when Hiba leads Muslim study groups, she asks not for blind faith, but curiosity and understanding. That Chehab’s film focuses on this internal emancipation, rather than problematising the veil and Islam itself, makes for a radical portrayal of a Muslim woman rediscovering her voice.

• Q is on True Story from 3 April.