Interview and Words by Nour Khairi

A striking fact about diaspora people, refugees or migrants, is that the fragmentation of our identities tends to become a place we draw inspiration from, whether it’s in the art we make, or in the jokes we tell. In the best-case scenarios, our histories and cultures of origin become a place of empowerment and self-assurance. But in the worst case scenarios, people aren’t able to reconcile all the different and conflicting parts of themselves. What happens when this fragmentation turns into a fracturing?

This is precisely the question explored within Dina Amer’s new film ‘You Resemble Me’, a beautiful, tragic and cathartic re-telling of a true story about Hasnaa Aït Boulahcen, the French-Moroccan woman who was implicated in the Paris Attacks of 2015. Hasnaa, as we may all vaguely remember from news headlines, was falsely accused of being the Europe’s first female suicide bomber. Only for French investigators to later declare she was not the perpetrator, but was killed when someone next to her detonated a suicide vest.

In this wave of conflicting media reports and mysterious claims about her origin, Hasnaa was labelled the first female kamikaze, a party-girl, a French cow-girl, someone who had “never opened the Quran”. At the time, Dina Amer was an on-air correspondent for VICE, doing her best to report on Hasnaa’s story, which shook the whole of Europe and the world. Amer was a celebrated journalist published in CNN, The New York Times, Huffington Post and more. Amer perhaps did not know at the time, how Hasnaa’s story would go on to change her career forever. Today, You Resemble Me is possibly the most comprehensive portrayal of Hasnaa Aït Boulahcen’s life, from being a young girl navigating the French foster care system, to the streets, and eventually to the fatal and evil grip of extremism.

ILONNA GRIMAUDO & LORENZA GRIMAUDO (Child Mariam & Child Hasna)

After a tear-filled experience watching experience, I sat down with Amer to discuss her directorial debut.

Nour: Every little element in this film was full of meaning. I immediately recognised the sound of Sudanese reciter Noreen Muhammed Siddique and it took me right back to the sounds of my childhood at home…

Dina: I was so happy you did. A few people actually came up to me afterwards, and commented on his reciting of the Quran and how beautiful it was. When I first heard that recording, I was like, this the perfect thing to use in that moment. She [Hasnaa] was trying to fully surrender and be better. She was misguided, I think her intention was to be good. But unfortunately, this moment was hijacked and manipulated by politically-motivated people. That's what's so criminal, there are young people who are brainwashed and become foot soldiers for some political ideology, whether it's for a group like ISIS or, on the other end of the spectrum, white nationalists. It’s the fact that these people are trying to find a certain identity for themselves.

Nour: What do you think causes this loss of identity to go horribly wrong? In the scene before Hasnaa is dropped off to what would become her death. She expresses “I just want my own family… home… maybe this is my chance to have that”. All immigrants/diasporic people can experience injustices that prevent us from having own families, homes, stability, is there anything we can point to that we may be able to put our resources into to prevent cases like this from happening?

Dina: I think that's an excellent question. Thank you for saying that. Collectively all of us Third Culture kids deal with a varying degree of feeling kind of alienated and struggling to find harmony between different lanes of identity. I think we all have fragility to varying degrees. Yet we don't all decide to go join an extremist group. We cannot really justify that choice. But this is to tell the story of how that choice happens. How come she unravelled so publicly? I think it’s a mental health crisis, to be honest. However, we can't point to one reason and say, aha, it’s because of her mom, or because the French state took her away from her sister, or because the police force and the military rejected her, or because she was on the street so often. It's all those things combined. And all these different ingredients come together to illuminate something about the human condition.

“we all live in multiplicity, we all wear different masks…”

Nour: All these elements play out so dynamically in this film which is what makes it so unique. Often times we’re so boxed in by ‘what a Muslim looks like’. Our identities become a monolith which doesn’t help. Would you like to talk about how this plays out for you as a Egyptian-American and someone who also experiences identities that might conflict with each other?

Dina: I feel like Muslim women globally struggle to exist on their own terms. From all sides, people are constantly trying to put us into boxes and to say, well, if you're Muslim, that means you dress like this, you don't do this. like, what? Why can’t I exist on my own terms? Why can't I just be Muslim and myself and free? Why can't being me be a source of freedom?...

Nour: …As ubiquitous as this feeling is, its nuances are not often explored. Stories like this are a huge step in the right direction like in encapsulating that difference and variety within one person, showing the real cost of a fragmented self that is not tended to, cared for, or reconciled…

Dina: Yeah, it's a cautionary tale of what happens when there is too much pressure from all sides. It leads to a schizophrenia of the self. It’s like, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know where I’ve aligned to. East or west? Should I align to the religion fully, or not? “I just want to be good.” I believe when people taste a moment of real Grace inside their bodies, through prayer for example, it’s a moment of real transcendence, especially when they've been in a very dark space for a long time. They want more of it, they just want to gobble it all up because they want to feel good. That’s where the danger is. Hasnaa tried to pray and connect to something bigger – but all the fragility and unresolved demons were still there. You cannot really put a band-aid on them – and if you’re not careful, people can really manipulate you and take you for a ride and you can end up somewhere like she did, on a balcony screaming for your life like, this is a nightmare. Get me out. This is not what I want. But it's too late.

Dina: I think that we all live in multiplicity, we all wear different masks, according to what's in front of us. And I think that when there's big shifts between the masks, and we leave our body often, just to kind of please people, our sense of self withers and leaves us in a very vulnerable state.

And with that, we closed the interview, with lots still on my mind and a feeling that this film deserved multiple viewings. Don’t miss out on Amer’s monumental work, we at AZEEMA certainly won’t be.

All film stills courtesy of Willa Productions

From resistance to ruptured identities, in conversation with Dina Amer on her debut film ‘You Resemble Me’

“we all live in multiplicity, we all wear different masks…”