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Shooting the Crossing: Representations of Maritime Clandestine Migration in Maghrebi Cinema
Abstract
In 1988, a Spanish photographer releases the picture of a Moroccan male corpse washed ashore next to his little boat on a beach in northern Morocco. This visual item is the first known image of a Maghrebi clandestine migrant who died in his attempt to reach the Spanish coast. Since the end of the 1990s, frustrated by the oftentimes distorted depictions conveyed by western satellite T.V. channels, as well as the press, Maghrebi writers and filmmakers have taken on the task of producing their own versions of clandestine migration (“h’rig” in Arabic) across the Mediterranean. Through the following films, Moroccan Yasmine Kassari’s L’Enfant endormi and Tunisian Ibrahim Letaïef’s Visa, and building from the field of border studies, my article explores the innovative approaches of these visual texts, whose primary objective is to challenge an unbridled propaganda, which fuels the discourses of conservative European politicians during electoral times. My presentation highlights the crucial methods and contributions of these filmmakers. I claim that these cinéastes take part in the ongoing debate surrounding immigration and influence it by advocating a shared right for Maghrebis to benefit from a booming Spanish economy and to become a part of the “global village.” I contend that these works offer an alternative to biased representations of h’rig by turning the mass media’s figures into personalized stories of identified bodies. This modus operandi thus allows them to humanize the tragedy while a growing number of media outlets discuss clandestine migration by means of figures and catchy headlines, as well as contribute to criminalize it altogether.
Discipline
Media Arts
Geographic Area
Maghreb
Sub Area
Cinema/Film