For possible future super searchers, this is all it took:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Unix::Conf::Bind8;

my $namedconf='/path_to/named.conf';

my ($obj, $conf);

$conf = Unix::Conf::Bind8->new_conf (
    FILE => $namedconf,
    SECURE_OPEN => 0
)
or $conf->die ('could not open \'named.conf\':' . $!);

$obj = $conf->get_zone ('example.com')
    or $obj->die ("couldn't get zone `example.com'");

print "\n" . $obj->file . "\n";
[download]

~~
naChoZ