Shamed looks as neutrally as possible on the effects of Jason Nassr and what he has done in his professional life. Centering around his London, Ontario trial in 2021, Nassr considers himself a filmmaker and a journalist trying to be balanced with how he portrays people. He likes his videos to look great and exciting to himself. The documentary does an apt job at showing him as a fascinating, complex person.

The film starts with featuring the multiple people who were posted by Nassr in his efforts to expose child predators. Some of them whom maybe did not understand what they were doing and, of course, some who did but who should have been answering to law enforcement. The film then boldly goes into Nassr’s perspective itself who, while given a fair shake through an interview and a plain presentation of his witness testimony, is shown undeniably as someone who was excited by being a hunter, at some points hunting the many people who he would then frame as child predators. The film also exposes him as a hunter of women whom he would photograph and sometimes grope and then would even post revenge porn about.

Many people interviewed who covered his trial come to see him as a someone who wanted to bully others and wasn’t there to protect people. The film covers the dangerous mob mentality Nassr created that went behind some of these people, even as they begged for help. The film is well photographed with very impressive editing and a collection of the footage related to the cases. Shamed interviews many crucial perspectives to show the diversity of cases that Nassr, affected including Nassr himself. This is a gambit that works to give his perspective where he ultimately condemns himself.

We keep discovering new things about the people involved which makes this a true journey of understanding and learning about who Nassr is and who the people he interacted with were that took interest into his cases. Some cases of Nassr’s subjects are a bit too long perhaps, while other parts like exploring the allegations against Nassr as a sexual criminal against adult are perhaps not given enough runtime. There is also a brief look at his audience which is another important part of the film. It also doesn’t acknowledge also the enjoyment we can get out of seeing this kind of suffering and this kind of drama play out. 

Even so, Shamed is undoubtedly a must-watch film from TVO.

Shamed was available at HotDocs ’25. For more information, click here.