Original-Cin Q&A: Director of the Doc Cynara Talks Rush-to-Judgment in the Trial of a Dead Teen's Mom

By Thom Ernst

On the morning of February 19, 2011 in Toronto, Cindy Ali saw her husband off to work and their three daughters off to school, while Cindy stayed, as she had for the past 16 years, with their disabled daughter, Cynara.

But that morning began a nightmare that would find the 16-year-old Cynara lifeless, and Cindy accused of her death.

In her heart-rending documentary Cynara - a feature at this year’s Hot Docs Festival - Sherien Barsoum revisits that tragic morning and the ordeal that tests the strength and love of a close-knit Trinidadian Canadian family.  

Barsoum looks at all angles of the case, which begins with a 911 call from Cindy, barely able to speak, reporting that two men dressed in black and wearing ski masks invaded her home claiming to look for a package.

Cindy’s story is almost immediately called into question by a first responder who finds Cynara unresponsive and suspects Cindy might be responsible for her death. Cindy is tried and found guilty, but there are those who believe in her innocence.

Along with a determined journalist, and a dedicated attorney who uncovers shocking discrepancies in Cindy’s court case, Barsoum takes the audience on a journey towards a retrial that is disturbing, emotional, and at times, inspirational.

The director sat with Original-Cin to talk about her film and the incredible strength of a loving family in crisis.

ORIGINAL-CIN: Let’s enter this conversation by talking about your use of freeze frames to re-enact the tragic events surrounding the story of your film Cynara.

SHERIEN BARSOUM: We tried a few different approaches. In theatre, there’s a technique called tableau where actors will freeze and then resume the next scene. Tableau vivant means a living picture, a living moment.

And that’s really what I wanted to establish in the recreations. Because, you know, recreations often can be a little bit corny.

I actually hate recreations. But we were posed with this challenge of so much of the film, and so much of the story, taking place in 2016 during a trial with no visuals because Canadians aren’t allowed to film anything in court.

And so I had to find a way to bring those moments back to life. I thought, how else to bring in audiences into a moment to really experience what something could be like without being editorial about it?

So, it was a challenge. It’s not a freeze frame. Those are all actors that are holding their breath in a moment and the camera is travelling throughout them. So, that was a challenge.

O-C: What do you think you achieved by using that effect?

BARSOUM: I hope what we achieved is that we invited folks to come and sit inside a moment and to really listen to the audio and be immersed in the moment in time. And they could draw their own conclusion as to what it might have felt like, what was going through each character’s mind. Yeah, just an invitation to pause.

O-C: The whole film is based on drawing your own conclusions. But it’s inevitable that the filmmaker is going to have a bias. I was aware of the bias. My first reaction in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film is, why should I trust the filmmaker’s point of view when initial evidence points to guilt?

BARSOUM: It’s a fair question. Ironically, it’s how I did when I initially came to the story.

Director Sherien Barsoum

I came with a high degree of skepticism. I have a background in journalism. I read the same headlines as everyone else did. I was invited into the story and the first thing I did was to read as much as I could. I was very skeptical when I entered the story.

It was only in meeting the Ali family, personally. And then spending time with Cindy in prison, and then delving into the transcripts that I started to shift my opinion and my perspective. And I started to ask deeper questions.

And that’s really how I hoped I invited folks to consider the story as well, through the headlines, that collage of coverage up front as I confronted it. And then I invited folks, little by little, into the lives of the Ali family as they allowed me in, and deep into the trial, and I let those moments speak for themselves.

Of course, we have James Lockyer (Cindy’s attorney) who you could listen to all day long, deliver the appeal. And his rationale as he built her appeal, as well.

I wanted to be as diligent as I could. I had the assistance of a lawyer walking through the transcripts with me. Everything, of course, was vetted. We could not present anything that wasn’t factual.

But, of course, my bias is there. I believe Cindy. I believe her story. I believe her family. I believe in her innocence. And I’m glad you felt that too. 

O-C: There’s a moment in the film that struck me above all others, and it’s the moment Cindy returns home, sits next to her husband, and very tenderly looks up at him and takes his arm. It seemed to solidify the family’s affection for each other. 

BARSOUM: It’s funny what jumps out to different people as they watch the film. A bit of behind-the-scenes of that, my crew was filming that from outside. That was at the height of COVID and we didn’t want to be in the house with the family.

So, we were filming that moment from the backyard through the window. A little bit of behind-the-scenes. But I’m glad that it communicated that (the family’s affection) to you.

For me, one thing was astonishing, and is astonishing to many people, especially folks who are used to thinking through and encountering families who have lost someone in a homicide case. There’s usually such grand division. Families go awry in all sorts of directions, and mistrust and all sorts of things happen.

But what shocked me and what shocks lawyers and everyone involved is the unwavering love they have for one another. It’s still ever-present 10-plus years later, the shock and disbelief that they’re in this situation, to begin with. I think that, on its own, speaks volumes.

O-C: The first indication I had of Cindy’s innocence is the reaction of her husband who tells journalists after the guilty verdict comes down, how angry he is. How did that moment resonate with you?

BARSOUM: Sometimes the family of the person who is incarcerated gets left in the dark, or in the shadows. And we focus on the person who is convicted and incarcerated—of course.

But Alan Ali is a remarkable man, the way that he stood by his wife and continues to stand by her and held down a family of three other children that he raised and supported in addition to supporting his wife. Remarkable.

And I think that moment of anger reflects so many things. It’s anger, of course, at the outcome, anger at the system, anger that he’s not allowed to grieve the loss of his daughter because he has to do all of this.

That his three other daughters have been put through hell as well. And their lives have been dramatically transformed. But that one sentence holds a lot of weight and emotion that this man has had to carry.

O-C: Alan also refers to one of his daughters as “a work in progress”. That could be interpreted as a declaration of ownership, but the way Alan says it, it comes across as caring.

BARSOUM: I think you hit upon it right there. The three girls, Amanda, Jaydee, and Chrissy, when this happened they were all still in their teens. They were in high school and didn’t really have the chance to live a regular teenage experience, because they were in and out of courts, visiting their mom on the weekend in prison.

Their adolescence was stolen from them. At the same time, they had lost their sister who they loved dearly. And so, each daughter had and has their own trajectory, and recovery, and challenges that they have gone through and continue to go through.

Their mom is standing trial right now. And so, their lives again come to a halt and revolves around this moment. Jaydee at that time was in a rough place. She’s not there right now, but she was in a rough place. I included those brief scenes with the girls as they would allow me in to show it’s not just Cindy, it’s not just Alan, but there’s these daughters as well who’ve got to overcome so much.

O-C: If you came to a point where you didn’t believe in Cindy’s innocence, would you have continued? Would you have had to continue?

BARSOUM: I brought that very scenario to the family right from the get-go. To say that I’m intrigued by your story. I think something went terribly wrong during the trial.

I’m a filmmaker, and I also know the realities of our system, but I have to be as honest as I can to the story. And the integrity of the story depends on my integrity as well—they go hand in hand.

There were moments of things that weren’t entirely clear. You see that near the end when I filmed with Jim (Rankin of the Toronto Star) and the forensic linguist. That letter was still a question mark.

And I struggled. I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to include that scene. I didn’t want to because I felt like Cindy’s story wouldn’t have been packaged so nice and neatly as I wanted it to be. But our team decided that we needed to. To preserve the integrity of all of us: Cindy, the family, myself, the film. Everyone involved. So, it was a challenge.

O-C: The trial is on now. Are you still in contact with the family? Are you following the story?

BARSOUM: I am. I’m not able to be there daily. I was there the first week. And I’m in touch with the family.

I’m also in touch with Jim Rankin who is the journalist that’s featured in the film and who is covering the trial as we speak. He’s written two stories thus far, and I’m sure he’ll release a few more. So, yes, I’m in touch with the family.

O-C: Rankin is a very convincing component in the film because he’s not personally connected. What do you think was the deciding point for Jim?

BARSOUM: Jim’s entry into Cindy’s story was earlier than mine. And I found him because I read a piece, he did about jury composition and the problematic nature of how juries are composed in Ontario.

Cindy’s case just happened to be one of the data pieces that Jim and the team had collected to analyze. So, it was of interest to me. He was hooked right from the beginning. And as he mentions in the film there’s a lot of pieces of their case that make it intriguing. And as a journalist, there’s a lot of hooks to hang his hat along the way. 

O-C: What has been the first responder’s reaction to the film to how his role has been interpreted? He comes across, in a way, as the villain in the film.

BARSOUM: Maybe because I am a documentary filmmaker and not a scripted one, I don’t really like the terms “villain,” and “victim” and “hero.” Every person holds so many layers to themselves.

But, you’re quite right it’s clear that the first responder had a large role to play in how the story unfolded. He was called to testify in the trial to unfold right, now. I invited him to participate in the film and he couldn’t.

O-C: Sorry, he couldn’t or wouldn’t?

BARSOUM: There’s a little bit of both. The last card in the film indicates that Toronto Fire (Department) didn’t want to comment, and they also ensured that he wouldn’t as well.

So, he couldn’t. And so he wouldn’t because he couldn’t.

I think there’s a lot to unpack there. He’s one person. But I think he represents a larger problem. He’s a stand-in for many individuals who might enter a scene, enter a home, enter a family home like Cindy’s, and jump to conclusions for multiple reasons: Because of how she looked, because of the way her daughter looked, because of the neighbourhood they lived in, the size of the home. He may have been the person, but these things happen because of larger issues.

O-C: After building a case for Cindy's innocence, you give the audience an out, suggesting that Cindy might have lied about the home invasion because she was frightened by her daughter’s illness. Why give the audience that out?

BARSOUM: That was the pillar on which the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed for her retrial. It was the one piece of Lockyer and Jessica Zita’s appeal that they conceded to and said, this was the error that led to a trial that didn’t serve Cindy.

And so, I had to include it because it was the winning argument. And I believe in smart audiences and was happy to let them land where they may. I didn’t need to draw the conclusion for them.

Cynara is streaming on CBC GEM now.