57th TIFF: "Layla M. Screening" - “2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" Tribute

57th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
November 3-13, 2016
 
LAYLA M. SCREENING
“2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER” TRIBUTE

 
This year the 57th Thessaloniki International Film Festival attempts to approach the multiple roles of woman through a special tribute entitled “2 or 3 things I know about her”, inspired by the unforgettable film by Jean- Luc Godard. As part of the tribute, which includes 5 films directed by women filmmakers from all over the world, the film Layla M by Mijke de Jong was screened on Friday, November 4, 2016, in the packed Frida Liappa theatre.
 
The film’s director and the scriptwriter Jan Eilander, who both attended the screening, thanked the Festival for inviting them and for having the film; after the screening they had a Q&A session with the audience who applauded them, as well as the film.
 
In Layla M., a young Muslim girl living in Amsterdam abandons her family and the Western lifestyle, to secretly marry and follow the path of her beliefs. However, due to the wrong choices she makes, she soon finds herself trapped in fanaticism and the clutches of Jihad.
 
Asked if the film’s plot is inspired by real events, Mijke de Jong replied that it was based both on real stories of girls with similar experiences, and research made by the film’s scriptwriter. She also noted that the Netherlands is experiencing such tensions for some years now, and reminded the audience the case of the Dutch director Theo van Ghogh, who was murdered 12 years ago in Amsterdam by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim on account of a short film of his, about women in Islam. On the other hand, Jan Eilander stressed that there are plenty of phenomena of xenophobia and racism against Muslim immigrants, while in the last elections, the country’s far-right party called for “Fewer immigrants in the Netherlands”. “We believe that the tensions in the Netherlands because of all this, was exactly what led us to shoot the film. From that point on, we did not want to judge our heroes, but to share their story. The audience will be the ultimate judge of what is right or wrong”, both stressed.
 
“Our story is common, but its difference lies in the fact that the characters choose to find themselves in extreme and dangerous situations”, Mrs de Jong and Mr Eilander underlined, while they also brought up the issue of prejudice which exists in the Dutch society. “An important trait of Moroccan youth is anger. And that is because they are being treated as different, and that often generates prejudice and related social behaviors”, they added.
 
The director Mijke de Jong commented that “we tried to depict as many diverse aspects of the matter as possible, choosing plenty of women as heroines in our narrative, since the film’s goal was to bring out the different layers of Islam’s relation with women”. For his part, the scriptwriter Jan Eilander noted that when they started shooting the film, war broke out in Syria: “We wanted to go to Syria and do the filming, but as time went by and we were watching tensions escalating, we realized this was not that simple”.
 
The tribute “2 or 3 things I know about her” (free admission) is financed by the Operational Program “Public Administration Reform” and co-funded by the European Union (European Social Fund) and national funds.