When family roots extend across cultures and countries, how does one honor—and mourn—effectively? Eman Nader’s short film Ennem serves as both a tribute to her grandmother and explores a cross-cultural existence as a Muslim woman living in the US with roots in Saudi Arabia.
Ennem is a monologue recounting the events before and after the death of my grandmother. Grief in a cross-cultural point of view is explored and how time and distance affect the realization and acceptance of loss.
The film began as a series of notes addressed to my grandmother, spanning four years following her passing. The notes evolved into their present form as a short film. Being financially limited and in the midst of undergraduate studies in Chicago, my sister Mina and I were unable to attend her funeral in Saudi Arabia. Visualizing the text from these notes and staging a burial ground four years later was a means of finding resolve from grief.
Power, appearance, myths, generations, change; all are themes prevalent throughout Ennem. Visual and literal references highlight the parallels and disparities between life in the US and Saudi Arabia. Mina and I play integral roles in the piece, hers as the central figure navigating the desert-like terrain of a wintery suburban Chicago park and I voicing the monologue. The geographic and emotional distance from the funeral event led Mina and I to feel disconnected from the collective mourning experienced by family in Saudi. Our inclusion serves to connect us to the women in our family who were present and yet were prohibited from attending and actively participating in the funeral and burial site due to Saudi Islamic tradition and societal dictum.
In the opening scenes, Mina is introduced driving and wearing an abaya without a veil covering her hair and face, signifying a growing movement of Saudi women defying rules of dress and redefining the social atmosphere of the major cities of Jeddah and Riyadh. A trio of women clothed in the abaya mourn within a short distance signifying that change, while possible, occurs at a slow pace. By the end of the piece, Mina breaks through the invisible and traditional barriers excluding women from the gravesite and beyond this trio to pay her final respects.
Visiting Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and working on an in-progress documentary in the years since Ennem was made has allowed me to further investigate how the themes presented in the film have both evolved or remained static. I hope to continue exploring more themes and questions that have risen regarding feminism, human rights, duality, and displacement as a third culture kid.
