ISTANBUL EXPRESS - Nisi Masa

I Am Not Here is a film about
citizenship and identity. The
idea of belonging and the
confrontation with the eye
of a foreigner are particularly
well described by the film’s researcher:
“I enter a big room with Chinese banners
on the wall and simple wooden
tables on the sides. An older man gives
me a questioning look. He doesn’t speak
Dutch and walks with me to a woman
sitting at a table. After exchanging some
heavily Chinese accented words, we
come to the conclusion that we do not
understand each other and that I should
come back another day. For hours, I
wander through streets decorated with
Dutch as well as Chinese names. I learn
that a hundred years ago, numerous
Chinese people came to Amsterdam to
work in the shipping industry, which
also explains the location of Chinatown.
The Chinese character adds a mystical
element to the well-known Amsterdam
features of coffee shops, abandoned bicycles
and red light windows. The result
is a cosy medley, a folk-neighbourhood.
I thought it would be a nice setting for
the film.” (Bibi Bleekemolen, Researcher
Amsterdam)
“Our relationship to other people,
whether they are from a different country,
race or sex, has completely changed
in contemporary times. There is no
more symbolic confrontation, settled by
religion, rituals and taboos. Except for a
concrete confrontation of destruction:
“If you’re not like me, I exclude you or I
kill you.” Western societies have reduced
the reality of others, either by colonisation
or by cultural assimilation. Therefore,
in a world where such a material
abundance has emerged, the real rarity
is otherness.”
(Marc Guillaume, Figures d’altérité)
“I am a foreigner in appearance, not
in nationality. I feel French because
I live in a country called France. I
automatically feel French, I cannot
only feel Moroccan. I only feel Moroccan
in spirit, in my tradition, my
culture...”
“In Hong Kong, the first day I was
walking on the street, a lady asked
me how to get to a certain place. I
said I didn’t know; I had just arrived
there, I’d never lived there. She was
surprised: “but you look Chinese,
you speak Chinese…” At times like
these, of course, you feel different.”
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