Film and migration, This may not be surprising given that transna-

tional mobility and migration belong to “the

Europe key forces of social transformation in the con-
temporary world” (Castles 2002: 1144) and
Daniela Berghahn
that public debates over immigration are con-
tentious and are making media headlines. As a
European cinema and migration
result of these changes, the cultural spaces
With European cinemas becoming increas- occupied by migrants are gradually shifting
ingly determined by multicultural and multi- from the margins to the center as representa-
ethnic presences and themes, critical paradigms tions of migrant and diasporic identities are
that examine these cinemas in terms of their assuming a more prominent position in
national specificity do not adequately address cinema. In fact, film, alongside music, must be
the shift from the national to the transnational seen as the most influential popular artistic
which has occurred during the past 30 years. practice with regard to the (self-)representation
This shift has been fueled by the ongoing of migrant and diasporic groups and their
process of European integration, the geopoliti- experiences and concerns.
cal changes following the collapse of commu- European cinema is well and truly in
nism and the arrival of labor migrants and motion, as is testified by the growing attention
asylum-seekers desiring access to what they it accords to narratives of migration, transna-
perceive to be the politically and economically tional dispersal, and cross-cultural encounters.
stable heartland of the “old,” that is Western This is also reflected in the new transnational
Europe. These various sociopolitical processes approach to European cinema which has
have meant that the concept of European iden- emerged since the late 1990s and in a rapidly
tity and nationhood is becoming ever more growing number of publications, many of
contested and fluid. This is reflected in a which take the lead from two pioneering
growing number of films made by migrant and studies, Ella Shohat and Robert Stam’s Unthink-
diasporic filmmakers that challenge traditional ing Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the
concepts of national identity, “Europeanness,” Media (1994) and Hamid Naficy’s An Accented
and ethnocentric myths. Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking (2001).
What documentaries about the memories Recent books focusing on migration and
of migration, such as Mémoires d’immigrés, European cinema include Rueschmann (2003),
l’héritage maghrébin/Memories of Immigration Grossman and O’Brien (2007), Loshitzky (2010),
(Yamina Benguigui, 1997) and I for India and Berghahn and Sternberg (2010). In addi-
(Sandhya Suri, 2005) and feature films includ- tion, there are numerous studies which explore
ing Bend it like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, the contribution of migrant (frequently also
2002), Fatih Akin’s Gegen die Wand/Head-On referred to as hyphenated identity or diasporic)
(2004) and Die Fremde/When We Leave (Feo filmmakers, to particular national cinemas,
Aladag, 2010) have in common is that they including Tarr on Maghrebi French film (Tarr
engage with hyphenated identities and multi- 2005; Tarr & Porton 2007); Mercer (1988),
ple cultural affiliations, foregrounding “trans- Pines (1991, 1992), Bourne (2001), and Malik
national connections” (Hannerz 1996) over (2001) on black and Asian British film and
national belonging. Representations of migrant television; Korte and Sternberg (2004) on
subjectivities and the facets and dynamics of British Asian cinema; and Göktürk (2000,
postmodern multiculturalism have assumed a 2002), Burns (2006), and Berghahn (2009) on
prominent position in cinematic narratives. Turkish German cinema.

The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Edited by Immanuel Ness.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm226
2 film and migration, europe

Defining migrant and diasporic cinema essay, diaspora refers to a settler community
that has evolved from migration and that is, by
Although the terms “transnational,” “migrant,” definition, dispersed from their original or
and “diasporic” cinema are frequently used putative homeland “to two or more foreign
interchangeably, they are not synonymous. regions . . . [and] a collective memory and
Transnational, migrant, and diasporic cinemas myth about the homeland” (Cohen 2008: 17),
all transcend the boundaries of the nation- which often manifests itself in a nostalgic
state but they do so in different ways. Transna- longing to return. Thus, migrant filmmakers
tional relations between national film cultures can be defined as first-generation immigrants
are nothing new but the ascription itself has who have themselves experienced migration,
only recently gained currency. Transnational leaving their country of birth in search of
cinema does not imply the end of national better economic conditions, a more stable
cinema but instead foregrounds a new per- sociopolitical environment, or for any number
spective that emphasizes “the cycle of film pro- of other reasons.
duction, dissemination and reception as a Diasporic filmmakers, in contrast, are typi-
dynamic process that transcends national cally second- or subsequent generation immi-
borders and reflects the mobility of human grants, that is the children of migrants who
existence in the global age” (Iordanova 2007: were born and raised in the destination country,
508; see also Ezra & Rowden 2006; Halle 2008). who have no first-hand experience of migra-
Migrant and diasporic cinema is generally tion – and often little familiarity with their
conceived of as a particular type of transna- parents’ country of origin – but for whom the
tional cinema, that is as a sub-category (see memory of migration and dispersal is medi-
Higbee & Lim 2010). Its recent emergence as ated through oral history, family photos and
a much debated and contested critical concept home videos, and many other forms of media-
is inextricably linked to the postcolonial and tion. In the documentary I for India, for
labor migrations of the second half of the example, the British Asian filmmaker Sandhya
20th century and the beginning of the 21st Suri uses her father’s extensive home movie
which have “dramatically changed the social footage to retrace more than 40 years of her
and cultural composition of European [and family’s migratory history.
other Western] societies” (Robins 2007: 152) Marianne Hirsch, who coined the term
and which have led to the increased visibility “postmemory,” describes it as a form of
of filmmakers with a migratory background memory that is “mediated not through recol-
and a growing interest in the representation lection but through an imaginative investment
of ethnic diversity and multiculturalism on and creation. . . . Postmemory characterizes
screen. the experience of those who grow up domi-
The distinction between migrant and dia- nated by narratives that preceded their birth”
sporic cinema revolves around the different (1997: 22–23). It is “distinguished from
stages of mobility, referenced in the terms memory by generational distance and from
“migration” and “diaspora,” as well as the history by deep personal connection” (1997:
concept of generation. Migration refers to col- 22). 40 m2 Deutschland/Forty Square Metres of
lective mobility and can be temporary or result Germany (1986) and Abschied vom falschen
in long-term settlement (whether planned or Paradies/Farewell to a False Paradise (1989) are
due to the impossibility of returning or of features made by the first-generation Turkish
moving on). Migration inevitably constitutes a German filmmaker Tevfik Başer. They are social
precondition for the formation of a diaspora, problem films in the realist tradition, focusing
defined as a recognizable and minoritarian on the victimization and suffering of Turkish
social group that preserves its “ethnic or eth- migrant women in Germany. Almanya –
nic-religious identity and communal solidar- Willkommen in Deutschland/Almanya – Welcome
ity” (Sheffer 1986: 9). For the purposes of this to Germany, made by the second-generation
 film and migration, europe 3

Turkish German writer-director Yasemin Sam- would be a pertinent example. The writer-
dereli (2011), by contrast, uses humor and director is of Austrian descent while her
magical realism to render her family’s experi- Turkish surname derives from the fact that she
ence of migration and building a new life is married to Turkish German director Züli
in the diaspora in unambiguously positive Aladag. Similarly, Claire Denis’s 35 rhums/35
terms. Shots of Rum (2008), about the affectionate
Yet how does this definition account for relationship between the widowed Lionel, a
the many films about the experience of migra- French citizen and from one of the French
tion and diaspora made by filmmakers of the Overseas Departments, and his racially mixed
hegemonic host societies in Europe that lack daughter Jo, could be described as partaking in
this deep personal investment? To bridge this the diasporic experience through the encoun-
apparent gap Avtar Brah’s concept of the “dias- ter in the diaspora space and prosthetic
pora space” provides a useful framework, since it memory. Denis is not part of the diasporic col-
disavows the significance of any essentialist lectivity her film represents, but she spent her
notions of origin or of the history of displace- formative years in Africa where her father
ment as prerequisites for partaking in the worked as a colonial administrator. Thus her
diasporic experience: “diaspora space as a con- interest in postcolonial diasporic subjectivities
ceptual category is ‘inhabited,’ not only by may not be entirely coincidental. However,
those who have migrated and their descen- unlike the other films mentioned in this brief
dants, but equally by those who are constructed survey, 35 Shots of Rum takes its protagonists’
and represented as indigenous. In other words, migratory background and ethnic minority
the concept of diaspora space (as opposed to status for granted, which raises the question
that of diaspora) includes the entanglement, whether Denis’s film can be labeled “diasporic”
the intertwining of genealogies of dispersion at all.
with those of ‘staying put’ ” (Brah 1996: 209). It is no coincidence that migrant and dia-
Those films authored by filmmakers belonging sporic cinema, which builds on a long prehis-
to the majority culture are based on what tory, has only recently attracted attention in
Alison Landsberg (2004) has aptly termed academic discourse. Its emergence as a critical
“prosthetic memory.” concept reflects the growing significance of the
In contrast to those forms of collective new migrations of globalization and the new
memory that “naturally” belong to a particular diasporas (Van Hear 1998), which constitute
community or group and reinforce this group’s the “exemplary communities of the transna-
identity, prosthetic memories are “artificial,” tional moment” (Tölölyan 1991: 5). They call
derived from a sensuous engagement with into question traditional ideas of national
mass mediated representations, such as film identity and “imagined communities” (Ander-
and television. They have the ability of “pro- son 1983) as being somehow bounded by a
ducing empathy and social responsibility as particular cultural-national heritage. They
well as political alliances that transcend race, challenge notions of national belonging and
class and gender [and that serve as] the basis national communities, constructing instead
for mediated collective identification and the alternative socialities based around transna-
production of potentially counter-hegemonic tional networks and transnational connections
public spheres” (Landsberg 2004: 21). Pros- (Robins 2007: 156; see also Hannerz 1996).
thetic memory allows nondiasporic filmmak- According to Thomas Elsaesser, in particular,
ers to see through the eyes of the other, to second-generation diasporic subjects are
articulate a collective memory that is not their hyphenated nationals at subnation level, often
own, and to forge alliances and bridge chasms excluded from the social fabric of the host
of difference. The above-mentioned When We society into which they were born, yet no
Leave, a melodrama about a tragic honor longer fully partaking in the customs and tra-
killing in a Turkish diasporic family in Berlin, ditions of their parents’ country of origin, their
4 film and migration, europe

identity is derived from “a double occupancy Conclusion

which . . . functions as a divided allegiance: to
the nation-state into which they were born, What these films have in common is that
and to the homeland from which (one or both inscribed in them is the collective memory,
of) their parents came (2005: 118). It is this or rather postmemory, of the migratory expe-
interstitial position which contemporary dia- rience, which has had a profound impact on
sporic filmmakers occupy that accounts for the the aesthetic sensibilities of both migrant and
specific aesthetic strategies of migrant and dis- diasporic filmmakers in Europe and on the for-
aporic cinema. mation of their cultural identity. Migrant and
diasporic cinema is characterized by a distinc-
tive aesthetic approach, which reflects the
Transforming European cinema
“double consciousness’”(Gilroy 1993), “double
Contemporary European cinema has under- occupancy” (Elsaesser 2005), or “diasporic
gone an enormous transformation as a result optic” (Moorti 2003) of its creators. This par-
of the increased visibility of filmmakers with a ticular “way of seeing . . . underscores the
migratory background. These filmmakers, interstice, the spaces that are and fall between
their parents, or grandparents came to Europe the cracks of the national and the transnational
as part of postcolonial migrations to the impe- as well as other social formations” (Moorti
rial “mother countries” or as part of labor 2003: 359). The diasporic optic underscores a
migration which affected virtually all northern “subject position that lays claim to and negoti-
and Western Europe, irrespective of their colo- ates between multiple affiliations . . . [and
nial past. Others came after the end of the cold that] seeks to reveal this desire for multiple
war, when global migration, in particular, from homes through specific representational strat-
the east to the west, intensified and when other egies” (Moorti 2003: 359). That is why dia-
migratory flows that follow a more random sporic cinema is an aesthetically hybrid cinema
logic and direction occurred (Iordanova 2010). that juxtaposes and fuses stylistic templates,
Yet time has to pass before one can establish generic conventions, narrative and musical tra-
with certainty whether these migrants will ditions, languages, and performance styles
settle or embark on further, secondary migra- from more than one (film) culture.
tions. Indeed, many contemporary filmmakers As a “cinema of displacement” (Ghosh &
may not be diasporic at all, but merely trans- Sarkar 1995–96), migrant and diasporic cinema
nationally mobile, going wherever the best is characterized by “a heightened sense of
funding and production opportunities arise. spatial activity,” a preponderance of journeys
Recent examples of the most established of quest and a dominance of transitional and
migrant and diasporic cinemas in Europe, such liminal spaces that signal that these films are
as Turkish German, black and British Asian, concerned with identities in flux. The numer-
and Maghrebi French cinema, have won con- ous claustrophobic interiors and a predilection
siderable acclaim and have, occasionally, even for locations on the urban periphery draw
captured mainstream audiences. Witness the attention to the social exclusion or marginal-
international, mainstream appeal of British ization experienced by the migrant or dia-
Asian girl-power movie Bend it like Beckham, sporic subjects in these films.
the critical success of Fatih Akin’s melodrama Being by definition a cinema that origi-
Head-On, the first German film in 18 years to nates from marginalized collectivities that
win the Golden Bear at the International Berlin are negotiating their place in the social fabric
Film Festival in 2004, or the cult following of of hegemonic host societies, migrant and
La Haine/Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) diasporic cinema is centrally concerned with
which depicts a “black–blanc–beur” trio of dis- identity politics and the “other.” It probes dif-
enfranchized young men living on the urban ference along the multiple coordinates of
periphery of Paris. race, color, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion,
 film and migration, europe 5

generation, class, and sexuality. It is a cinema Ghosh, B. & Sarkar, B. (1995–96) The cinema of
in which spatio-temporal (e.g. chronotope of displacement: towards a politically motivated
the homeland or the recurrent theme of nos- poetics. Film Criticism 20, 102–113.
talgia and nostalgic journeys) and spatio-racial Gilroy, P. (1993) The Black Atlantic: Modernity and
Double Consciousness. London: Verso.
modalities (e.g. the black and the Brown Atlan-
Göktürk, D. (2000) Turkish women on German
tic) coalesce and converge and whose strategic
streets: closure and exposure in transnational
agenda is the relocation of the margins to the cinema. In M. Konstantarakos (ed.), Spaces
center, the valorization, and ultimately “the in European Cinema. Exeter: Intellect, pp. 64–76.
redemption of the marginal” (Stam 2003: 35). Göktürk, D. (2002) Beyond paternalism: Turkish
German traffic in cinema. In T. Bergfelder, E.
SEE ALSO: Diasporas: historical and conceptual Carter, & D. Göktürk (eds.), The German
analysis; Europe: immigrant legislation and laws; Cinema Book. London: British Film Institute,
Film and migration, New Europe; Film and pp. 248–256.
migration: excavating history and memory; Film Grossman, A. & O’Brien, A. (2007) Projecting
and migration: the problem of trauma Migration: Transcultural Documentary Practice.
London: Wallflower.
References and further reading Halle, R. (2008) German Film after Germany:
Toward a Transnational Aesthetic. Urbana:
Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: University of Illinois Press.
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Hannerz, U. (1996) Transnational Connections:
Nationalism. London: Verso. Culture, People, Places. London: Routledge.
Berghahn, D. (2009) Turkish German dialogues on Higbee, W. & Lim, S. H. (2010) Concepts of
screen. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary transnational cinema: towards a critical
Film [special issue: Turkish German Dialogues transnationalism in film studies. Transnational
on Screen] 7, 3–9. Cinemas 1, 7–21.
Berghahn, D. & Sternberg, C. (eds.) (2010) Hirsch, M. (1997) Family Frames: Photography,
European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA:
Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe. Harvard University Press.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Iordanova, D. (2007) Transnational film studies. In
Bourne, S. (2001) Black in the British Frame: The P. Cook (ed.), The Cinema Book. London: British
Black Experience in British Film and Television. Film Institute, pp. 508–509.
London: Continuum. Iordanova, D. (2010) Migration and the
Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: cinematic process in post-cold war Europe. In
Contesting Identities. London: Routledge. D. Berghahn & C. Sternberg (eds.), European
Burns, R. (2006) Turkish-German cinema: from Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film
cultural resistance to transnational cinema? In in Contemporary Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave
D. Clarke (ed.), German Cinema since Macmillan, pp. 50–75.
Unification. London: Continuum, pp. 127–150. Korte, B. & Sternberg, C. (2004) Bidding for the
Castles, S. (2002) Migration and community Mainstream? Black and Asian British Film since
formation under conditions of globalization. the 1990s. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
International Migration Review 36, 1143–1168. Landsberg, A. (2004) Prosthetic Memory: The
Cohen, R. (2008) Global Diasporas: An Transformation of American Remembrance in the
Introduction. London: Routledge. Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia
Elsaesser, T. (2005) Double occupancy and small University Press.
adjustments: space, place and policy in the New Loshitzky, Y. (2010) Screening Strangers: Migration
European Cinema since the 1990s. European and Diaspora in Contemporary European
Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University
Amsterdam University Press, pp. 108–130. Press.
Ezra, E. & Rowden, T. (2006) What is transnational Malik, S. (2001) Representing Black Britain: Black
cinema? In E. Ezra & T. Rowden (eds.), and Asian Images on Television. London: Sage.
Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. Mercer, K. (1988) Black Film, British Cinema.
London: Routledge, pp. 1–12. London: ICA
6 film and migration, europe

Moorti, S. (2003) Desperately seeking an identity: Shohat, E. & Stam, R. (1994) Unthinking
diasporic cinema and the articulation of Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media.
transnational kinship. International Journal of London: Routledge.
Cultural Studies 6, 355–376. Stam, R. (2003) Beyond third cinema: the
Naficy, H. (2001) An Accented Cinema: Exilic and aesthetics of hybridity. In A. Guneratne &
Diasporic Filmmaking. Princeton: Princeton W. Dissanayake (eds.), Rethinking Third Cinema.
University Press. London: Routledge, pp. 31–48
Pines, J. (1991) Representation and Blacks in British Tarr, C. (2005) Reframing Difference: “Beur” and
Cinema. London: BFI Education. “Banlieue” Filmmaking in France. Manchester:
Pines, J. (1992) Black and White in Colour: Black Manchester University Press.
People in British Television since 1936. London: Tarr, C. & Porton, R. (eds.) (2007) “Beur”
British Film Institute. is beautiful: a retrospective of Maghrebi-
Robins, K. (2007) Transnational cultural policy French filmmaking [special issue]. Cineaste
and European cosmopolitanism. Cultural Politics 33(1) Sup.
3, 147–174. Tölölyan, K. (1991) The nation-state and its
Rueschmann, E. (ed.) (2003) Moving Pictures, others: in lieu of a preface. Diaspora 1, 3–7.
Migrating Identities. Jackson: University of Van Hear, N. (1998) New Diasporas: The Mass
Mississippi Press. Exodus, Dispersal and Regrouping of Migrant
Sheffer, G. (ed.) (1986) Modern Diasporas in Communities. Seattle: University of Washington
International Politics. London: Croom Helm. Press.