Although the globalization has in its wake brought fresh economic, political and social challenges to the humanity, ironically, there is a diminishing sense of the borderlines between man and man. The present time is time of migration and mobility and this impacts a paradigm shift in the survival-ways of the people at large. The shifts in economic and cultural landscapes have definite impacts upon the mental contours of man. If this all have their reverberations in literature, cinemas too show the stamps of the variegated impacts of this new scenario and context. The genre of humanist cinema enjoys a big time today with the proliferating presence of films on immigrants’ issues. The immigration experience has become a focal point in several of the films released today. They are based upon stories about the migrants’ lives and psyche.
The lives of the immigrants can be looked from various perspectives for they have their own exilic experiences, they retain for themselves an unrestricted store of nostalgia for home, they undergo umpteen number of vicissitudes during their journeys, they have their own anxieties over their alienation from their home-lands, they have their own transnational experiences besides cultural shocks and conflicts.
The globalization also has a hegemonic character of it. For instance, adoption of technology in marketing leading to the growth of e-commerce has been contributing towards rise in unemployment. Also, in certain parts of the globe people are being unable to catch up with the developments that are happening in the rest of the world. It is no use saying that such imbalances only add to the spurt in immigration (to many among these migrants it is imperative to move out for as they think, if they do not, their survival will be more at stake).
Many times, the migrants after the arrival in their new habitats come in sharp conflicts with the permanent inhabitants. At times their employers among the permanent inhabitants too look down upon them as if they are mere disposable commodities;-circumstances that may also stimulate in the mind of the expatriates an urge for emancipation and even may provoke them to explore some grounds for radicalization.
Films on immigrants’ issues try to yield in their content, aesthetics and vocabulary a profound sense of humanism. Illustrations of recent productions in this context would make for a pretty long list. A randomly made short-list in this connection may include the films like: Trance (Teresa Villaverde/Portugal), Lorna’s silence (Luc Dardane and Jean-pierre Dardane/France), Dheepan (Jaques Audiyard/France), La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz/France), Fatima (Philippe Faucon/France-Canada), Siyah Karga (Yonetmen M. Tayfur Ayoin/Turkey), A Ciambra(Jonas Carpignano/Italy), All the Dreams in the World (Laurence Ferreira Barbosa/France), Birds are Singing in Kigali (Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze/Poland) and The Namesake (Mira Nair/India).
These films are generally a mix of social realism and fiction. Due to their sensitive portrayal of the characters and the situations, the films appeal both to the immigrants and the others. Their ethical and ideological moorings too help in their drawing of rave reviews from all over the world.#
