For Malala Yousafzai, the Oscar-nominated Stranger at the Gate goes beyond awards

Directed by Joshua Seftel, the documentary is about the power of love and compassion

Malala Yousafzai, who executive produced the film, says that what really matters is its ability to touch people's hearts. AP

The Oscar-nominated film executive produced by Malala Yousafzai, Stranger at the Gate, may have missed out on the award for Best Documentary Short on Saturday night, but for Nobel Peace Prize laureate and activist Yousafzai, the disappointment was likely to be short-lived.

Speaking online ahead of the film’s pre-Oscars Paris screening last week, Yousafzai told The National: “This film is about being open to love and being willing to change, So while it’s an honour that the film has been nominated for an Oscar and all of that, this documentary can change lives. It can touch people's hearts. If this documentary can change one person's life, that would make me happy.”

The short film tells the incredible story of former US marine Richard McKinney. Through numerous tours of the Middle East, Islamophobia had become McKinney’s default setting. On returning to the US, the ex-soldier found himself so incensed when a child in a burqa joined his stepdaughter’s class that he began assembling bomb-making equipment and hatched a plan to put his military skills to use by bombing the local mosque in his Indiana hometown.

In a turn of events that his own stepdaughter admits in the film’s opening “most people don’t believe,” McKinney took a trip to the mosque to scope out his intended target. While there, he was met with such kindness that over the course of the next eight weeks, he gradually became a part of the mosque’s community.

He dined and debated with his new friends and abandoned his murderous ambitions. By the time the FBI showed up at his house suspicious over his purchase of explosives, the materials were long gone along with the plan — McKinney converted to Islam and would even go on to serve two years as president of the mosque.

Stranger’s director Joshua Seftel, who is Jewish, says the hatred expressed by McKinney at the story’s start is all too familiar: “When I was a little boy growing up in upstate New York, I faced a lot of anti-Semitism,” he explains. “Kids made fun of me, called me names, threw pennies at me in the hallway to see if I picked them up to show that Jews are cheap. Someone even threw a rock through our front window — things that stayed with me.”

In the wake of 9/11, Seftel says he started seeing a similar kind of hatred being directed towards his Muslim friends, inspiring him to start making films about American Muslims and ultimately leading him to McKinney’s story. “To me, that story is so inspiring, especially right now, when we live in a time where there's so much division and hate,” he says.

The director singles out Bibi Bahrami, one of the first members of the mosque to take McKinney under her wing and a key figure in the film, for particular praise: “When you come across someone like Bibi, when she finds out someone hates Muslims, the first thing she does is invite them over to her house for dinner. That to me that is a new kind of hero,” he explains.

“Someone who wants to connect with people that disagree with them to educate them, to build bridges. The world needs more Bibi Bahramis because it would be a better world if that were the case.”

Yousafzai agrees that at its heart, the film is a universal one — returning to her themes of love and understanding. She says: “I was attacked by a Muslim gunman and this documentary is not just about a Muslim family and a white guy. The story applies to so many communities where minorities are vulnerable to violence, where ethnic and religious groups are targeted because of their beliefs."

“I want people to learn from the story but also think about what is happening around them in their community, who are the vulnerable people,” she says.

“Sometimes we don't know what to do or how to address these problems. Bibi has shown us the power of conversation, of sharing love. The power of sharing a meal with a stranger who doesn't see you as an equal human. That’s really powerful and I believe in these values. It's really easy to preach about them, but it's harder to practice them.”

Stranger at the Gate is available to view for free on YouTube