Home No More

Home No More explores what it’s like living as a Muslim woman in Quebec City, one year after one of Canada’s worst terrorist attacks - the deadly shooting at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec (CCIQ) on January 29, 2017. The attack claimed the lives of six worshippers and injured 19 others, forever altering the complex relationship between Quebec’s Muslim community and the predominantly white, Catholic population of the city. The attack was the culmination in a series of ongoing Islamophobic attacks on the CCIQ and against Muslims in the Quebec capital. In June 2016, a pig’s head was left outside the CCIQ mosque, with the words “bon appetit” attached to it. In 2017, the city announced that it would sell land to the Muslim community to build a cemetery; several days later, feces were thrown at the door of the mosque. Some Muslims, many of whom established themselves in the city decades ago, refuse to abandon their homes and their community. Others are making the difficult choice to leave the city they call home; to move to places where they will feel safer and more accepted. Home No More follows 3 Muslim women at this crossroads. Aminata is packing her bags and relocating to another city, hoping to escape the prevailing climate of Islamophobia in Quebec City and start a new life. Nour has decided to stay in Quebec and work on countering stereotypes about Muslims through her community outreach program. Salma no longer feels at home in Quebec. Her father is an important local leader in the Muslim community and their car was torched last summer, by a neighbour. Salma is contemplating leaving the city for a more diverse place, one where she will be welcome.