Abstract
One of the strengths of the humanities is how they help us to understand the plight of others. In the 21st century, one of the most pressing issues has been that of immigration. It is a confounding and complex global issue with wide-ranging implications. Cinema is a vehicle that brings us into close contact with the humanities. Filmmakers create stories about displacement and starting anew that are accessible on a human scale. Films exploring the lives of characters who are part of migration flows also reflect their times and attitudes about people on the move. Francophone cinema has a long history of fiction films that incorporate ethnographic content viewed through the lens of geographic dislocation. In the 1930s, French cinema brought us the cross-cultural perspectives of a colonial power that viewed others as exotic. After the turbulence of the post-WWII decolonization process, the former colonies brought forth began to explore migration without the vestiges of 19th-century romanticism. Ousmane Sembène’s iconic 1966 film La Noire de… brought the two contexts together with stunning visual elegance. The 1980s saw French directors explore the traumatic memory of the loss of empire and the impacts of wars of independence on colonial settlers in films such as Indochine and Outremer. More recent films look at the contemporary migrant situation and its impacts. This paper works through how cinema reflects humanities content by representing the human drama of migration in the Francophone context.
Presenters
Myriam MompointProfessor, Humanities, Florida SouthWestern State College, Florida, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Migration, Cinema, France, Decolonization, Displacement, Memory, Francophone, Migrant, Film, Diaspora
