In The Shadows Of Grief, ‘For My Country’ Tells A Profoundly Personal Yet Universally Relevant Story

The Venice Film Festival celebrated the world premiere of Pour La France (English title: For My Country) by French filmmaker Rachid Hami. Deeply affecting and timely, this France-Taiwan co-production tells the story of Aissa, a young officer of Algerian origin, who tragically dies during a fresher initiation ritual at the prestigious French military academy of Saint-Cyr. For My Country was born out of a similar tragedy that befell Hami’s younger brother, Jallal, who passed away during a hazing ritual at Saint-Cyr.

“It has taken me seven years to write this film. It was a very long process. My purpose was to make sure that it would be a proper story — not just saying things about myself or trying to remake what I went through,” Hami shares. “I wanted to create a pure cinematographic piece that will give space to the audience without smashing them with sentimentalism.”

For My Country also addresses the economic devastation and social realities in a country still grappling with the baggage of French colonial rule. The intentional discrepancy between the original title of the film (Pour La France) and its English title (For My Country) reflects the film’s deeper investigation into questions of statehood, postcolonialism and national belonging.

“As a French person, but born in Algeria, it’s like France is my adoptive mother and Algeria is my biological mother,” Hami shares. “My biological mother couldn’t provide me with education, safety and food. France is my adoptive mother. She could provide me with a future, hope and food security, but at the same time, she was very violent towards me. She treated me differently from her biological children.”

Besides Algeria and France, it was important for Hami to set the story in Taiwan as his brother studied at the National Taiwan University (just like Aissa in the film). The Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) became a major partner, providing funding through Taiwan’s International Co-funding Programme. Amy Ma and Ma Tien-Tsung from Taiwan also joined the project as producer and executive producer respectively.

“I went to Taiwan for the first time in 2010 when my brother was in school there. This was the moment that for the first time, I felt like we became brothers because we really met each other at an age where we were able to communicate. When he passed, I went to live in Taiwan for two years. I don’t know why but I felt the need to go there. I shot a short film. It was the beginning of my own personal journey.”

With For My Country, Hami returns to the Venice Film Festival after his debut feature, Orchestra Class, screened in the festival’s Out of Competition program in 2017. Karim Leklou and Shaïn Boumedine play the two brothers and Lubna Azabal plays their mother in For My Country.

The screenplay was co-written with French philosopher and novelist Ollivier Pourriol, after the film’s producer Nicolas Mauvernay introduced Hami to him in 2018. The pandemic posed a massive challenge to the film’s production timeline. In 2020, Hami started to prepare to shoot the film but had to postpone production. When he arrived in Taiwan in 2021 to shoot the film, there was another surge of Covid-19 infections. Only ten days before production was set to begin, the filmmaker lost around 70 percent of his film locations. One scene also required the production to close off an entire street so that they could have 300 extras on set and still adhere to Covid-19 protocols.

“A crazy moment happened when I saw all the Taiwanese crew, the people from TAICCA, the government and city fight for us to secure locations as fast as possible,” Hami says. “I saw in Taiwan a huge willingness to help and make sure the movie would happen.”

It has taken Hami an arduously long time — writing, soul-searching and healing — to bring For My Country to Venice. “We have this glamour for three days and have a fantastic moment with the audience when you show it for the first time. But the truth is, behind that is seven years of very intense work, sweat and hardship. A theatrical experience is an emotional thing because you [get to] share with other people. You don’t know them and they are sitting around, but you can feel them. When we share this feeling together as a huge community for a movie, I think it’s something amazing,” Hami says.

Next up, Hami will be working on an anthology film set in Taiwan, currently titled Tales of Taipei. The anthology film will involve directors across Asia and Europe, who will each make a short film in Taipei. Hami is also writing a screenplay for his next feature.