VANCOUVER — ‘Air India returns to Ground Zero’ is how Sturla Gunnarsson describes the recent, private screening of his film Air India 182.

The film premiered at Hot Docs in Toronto, and airs on CBC on Sunday, ‘but this is the place where the story is still alive, this is where the conspiracy was hatched. This is where it all began. The issues leading to the bombing and the effects of it haven’t gone away,’ says Gunnarsson.

A Vancouver native who married into the Indo-Canadian community — his wife Judy Koonar associate produces — Gunnarsson remembers the temple riots and tension in Vancouver after the 1985 airliner bombing. But, he emphasizes, ‘this is a Canadian story. It was a Canadian tragedy against the Canadian people.’

The narrative nonfiction was written and directed by Gunnarsson and produced with David York (Gerrie & Louise, Beowulf and Grendel).

At the screening were family members of the victims, RCMP and CSIS officers, and airline employees who booked the tickets and checked the bags of the flight that ended with the most lethal act of aviation terrorism prior to 9/11. Most of the 331 victims were Canadian.

When the lights came on, there was no applause. Just a heavy silence as most of the audience wiped their eyes. Gunnarsson, Koonar and York stood at the podium to respond to questions and comments from the audience.

‘I want to thank you,’ said one woman. ‘It captures all the sadness. I am morally sad. This brings all the pain back.’

A Sikh man asked Gunnarsson why he didn’t show more about the terrorists. ‘We were expecting more, but you didn’t show more than what people already know,’ he remarked.

‘We never wanted it to be investigative. Our concept was to work with the material that was known, and to distill the story, to make a clear narrative. I wanted to give the victims a voice and a name, dignify their death,’ Gunnarsson explained.

‘The RCMP felt the story should be told and had great co-operation,’ York added. ‘But when it went up to the Justice Department, their lawyers said no [to parts of the story]. We lost our appeals, and so, we had to stick in the realm of known, established facts.’

Perviz Madon, who lost her husband Sam on the ill-fated flight, hopes that it will get a wide theatrical release across Canada, ‘to make it real.’

Gunnarsson tells Playback Daily the film will be playing the major film festivals, including Sunny Side of the Doc in France. ‘I’m not sure about a theatrical release. The most important thing is getting a large audience, and CBC will do that. I want Canadians to comprehend that this was a momentous tragic milestone in Canadian history. And right now, they don’t,’ he said.

Air India airs commercial free on CBC, Sunday at 9 p.m., on the anniversary of the flight’s departure, to be followed by a DVD release.