Film and migration, Europe

With European cinemas becoming increasingly determined by multicultural and multiethnic presences and themes, critical paradigms that examine these cinemas in terms of their national specificity do not adequately address the shift from the national to the transnational which has occurred during the past 30 years. This shift has been fueled by the ongoing process of European integration, the geopolitical changes following the collapse of communism and the arrival of labor migrants and asylum-seekers desiring access to what they perceive to be the politically and economically stable heartland of the “old,” that is Western Europe. These various sociopolitical processes have meant that the concept of European identity and nationhood is becoming ever more contested and fluid. This is reflected in a growing number of films made by migrant and diasporic filmmakers that challenge traditional concepts of national identity, “Europeanness,” and ethnocentric myths.