There is a central problem about migration: we are used to hear about migration connected to numbers, statistics,
policies, etc. The goal of the festival was to show the different representations of migrants and migration through different media. Those representations in documentaries often differ from the way in which migration and migrants are spoken about in mainstream public discourse. Cinematographic representations of immigrants have the possibility to get closer to the migrant reality. By using a different format, it is able to open minds and eyes for the other aspects of this complex reality. Instead of seeing migration as a singular process of a black, single man, it shows that everybody can be a migrant and that migrants are people who remain in transit.
The trajectory of the migrant is difficult to categorize, and every trajectory is different. What remains the same for all migrants though, is the fact that the trajectory has a transformative process. What the documentaries try to do is not only to get inside of head of the migrant and show the migrant reality from a different perspective (from the other side), but it also tries to be a political tool in order to give a voice to the voiceless. After seeing the movies, the question remains if the documentaries really managed to meet those goals. In my opinion, the documentation of migrant reality from the perspective of a non-migrant camera, is somehow still influenced by hierarchies and power relations. It is difficult or almost impossible to go beyond the descriptive observing position for a person who does not share the migrant experience.
The symposium consisted of three big thematic parts: journey, transition and negotiation. In the first part, the movies generally focus on how the migrants are influenced by the environment they transverse. The central problem is the representation of otherness. Even if the documentaries try to overcome the gap between the distinction between the Self and the Other, the way in which the migrants are represented, still are representation of radical Otherness. The only way of bridging the gap is to tell the story from the immigrant point of view, not from the point of view of the one who sees the migrant coming. But how to go beyond polarizing perception? How to be able to see immigration as a natural movement of human beings? It would be a very liberating idea to try to expand our concept of immigration. We move everyday, from home to work. We also move homes within the same city. We are on the move constantly. Everyone migrates, immigrates. It would be a strong idea to try to see movement as a natural process and in depicting the immigrant as a person moving in our direction, we could go beyond the polarizing view of Self and Otherness that bears so much structural violence.This point of view would have the potential to change some of the power relations.
In the second part, the documentaries focused on transition, which means the integration from the homecountry into the guest country and the problems that are related to that. An important conclusion can be made about this, the migrant experience is connected to a huge loss. It is not only about the loss of homeland, people, family, but is also about the loss of hope and expectation. What we see is that reality is always different from what we expect it to be. The migrant experience is characterized by a two-sided myth. On the one side there is the myth of arrival, which depicts the guest country, the opportunities and the chances as something ideal. When people immigrate, reality always comes different. The immigrant is exposed to structural and cultural violence, injustice, etc. On the other hand there is what you could call the myth of the return. The possibility of being able to return to the home country if the situation in the guest country would turn out unbearable.The problem is that home is also never the way you left it. Home moves like the migrant moves.
This two-sided myth becomes also very visible in the last session of the festival about "negotiation". In this part, the different documentaries try to show the difficulties and the possibilities of engaging with the new culture and establish an exchange of home culture and new culture. This negotiating is for a big part connected to some assimilation, it asks people to give up some of their cultural identity for the sake of integration. Still, full assimilation is not possible and would be a violation of individuality. At this point, an immigrant person will feel somewhere in between there home culture and the culture of the guest country. The unknown becomes known but stay strange, but the known becomes unknown and strange. In this way, one could say that the immigrant is caught in transition. Or maybe even lost in transition...
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten