Hasna Ait Boulahcen was wrongly called Europe’s first female suicide bomber by the media.
Now, journalist-turned-filmmaker Dina Amer wants to show the complex story behind the headlines in her new movie, You Resemble Me.
Now, journalist-turned-filmmaker Dina Amer wants to show the complex story behind the headlines in her new movie, You Resemble Me.
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00:00She didn't come out of the womb wanting to kill people.
00:08French authorities say detonating that bomb,
00:1026-year-old Hasna Aitmoula Sen,
00:13who became Europe's first female suicide bomber.
00:16Learning a lot more about this female suicide bomber,
00:18the first in Europe.
00:20A woman who has been dehumanized by the news.
00:30A woman who has been dismissed as a monster.
00:45Hasna was a girl who wanted to be seen.
00:48In France, there is this pressure to integrate
00:51when you come from an immigrant background,
00:53especially a Muslim one,
00:55and to not eat halal and to not wear the veil.
00:57Not being able to exist on your own terms as a Muslim woman
01:01causes some sort of schizophrenia of self.
01:04She's trying to be at once modern
01:07and also have a connection to the Middle East and to Islam.
01:12There's a cost to not being able to exist on your own terms.
01:18Her struggle to do so is really what makes her vulnerable,
01:21susceptible to brainwashing.
01:23She radicalized in less than 10 months,
01:25eventually joining a group like ISIS.
01:27That doesn't happen in a vacuum.
01:29I think that everyone is to blame.
01:43This video capturing the flames and debris
01:46bursting from the building as she detonated her suicide gust.
02:13Where she was on a balcony screaming for dear life,
02:15wanting to be let out, wanting to jump.
02:28They painted this picture of her being a very promiscuous,
02:33wild club girl who then wore the niqab and joined ISIS.
02:39How she went from the miniskirt to the niqab was one of the headlines.
02:42That would have never happened to a man.
02:52It was because she was a woman that it became so sensationalized.
02:55This woman who has been dehumanized by the news,
02:58who we haven't been allowed to experience her full humanity.
03:02She's just like every other woman,
03:05seeking love and belonging and consideration.
03:09She's just like every other woman,
03:11seeking love and belonging and consideration.
03:16I was actually at the scene in San Denis shortly after the bomb went off.
03:23And I felt so guilty that I had contributed to a fake news cycle
03:27that I went and I found her family.
03:29And her mother had turned away every single news camera or filmmaker
03:33who was interested in her daughter's story, except for me.
03:36And it was only because she felt like I resembled her daughter.
03:47It's a radical act to bring Hasna, a woman who is demonizing and called a monster,
03:52a woman who is brown and Muslim and Arab,
03:55and to allow her to live through a fictional depiction, which was complex.
04:00Hollywood affords that complexity to so many white men.
04:04There's a white shooter.
04:06The news goes into, well, they're a lone wolf,
04:09or let's talk about their childhood.
04:11But when it's a person of color, the whole community suffers that judgment.
04:17Treating this for what it is, it's a lone wolf terrorist attack.
04:20I think the mission of the film is to put you in the shoes and the skin and the heartbeat.