Woman wearing Palestinian ‘Keffiyeh’ is not Nolan's daughter
An image of Hollywood filmmaker Christopher Nolan has been seen circulating on social media, including in Bangladesh. The picture shows Nolan with a young woman wearing a Palestinian ‘keffiyeh’. The caption claims that the young woman is Nolan’s daughter and that the picture was taken when the Oscar-winning filmmaker went to her graduation ceremony. However, upon verification, it has been confirmed that the young woman in the picture is not Nolan’s daughter. In response to the widespread misinterpretation, the woman clarified in a tweet that she is not Nolan’s daughter, but herself and the filmmaker’s daughter attended school together.
After a reverse image search, a news report with this image is found in an online portal. The report claims that the filmmaker attended his daughter’s graduation ceremony in New York, where she is seen wearing a ‘keffiyeh’ to show support for Palestine.
The ‘keffiyeh’ is widely regarded as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism. Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the black-and-white ‘keffiyeh’ has become a symbol of protest around the world in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Photos shared on multiple Facebook pages, with captions in both English and Arabic, claim the young woman is Nolan’s daughter. The Palestine-Israel issue is mentioned in many comments below the post. The post, which has gone viral with Arabic captions, has garnered responses from over 50,000 users and attracted nearly 450 comments. At the time of writing this report, the post had been shared more than 2,500 times.
The widely spreading post, which features English captions, has garnered over 10,000 reactions and more than a thousand comments. Some commenters have noted that the young woman in the post is not Nolan’s daughter. Additionally, the post has been shared by about 900 users. The picture is also being circulated with the same caption in a Facebook group.
The photo, accompanied by the same claim, has been shared by multiple profiles (1, 2, 3), including a verified personal Facebook account.
To verify the authenticity of the circulating claim about the image, Dismislab conducted an online reverse image search. This led to an X (formerly Twitter) account belonging to a student who posted several photos from New York University’s graduation ceremony this year. The photo, falsely identified as showing Nolan’s daughter, was posted on this account on May 18 with the caption: “Congrats to me and Christopher Nolan’s daughter for graduating NYU today lol.”
Upon discovering that many people online were falsely claiming she was Nolan’s daughter, she tweeted again to clarify: “I am not his daughter yall I just happened to go to school with Flora and her BF was in my year.” The account handle name is ‘Dani’, though it was not confirmed if her name is Dani.
Verification revealed that Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas have four children. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Nolan’s wife, film producer Emma Thomas, shared that they have four children and discussed how she balances family and professional life.
Additionally, photos of the British-American filmmaker have been found on an online news portal. A photo taken in 2023 shows Nolan with his family, including his only daughter, Flora Nolan. There is no resemblance between Flora and the young woman who was recently misidentified as her in the circulating picture.
