![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
A ‘migrant festive chronotope?’ is established in the zone of crisis for the audiences, the programmers and importantly also for those whose lives are represented on screen, in this case, the refugees who came to Europe in the summer of 2015. The decision to programme films about refugees as the crisis is ongoing, as it was the case with the Czech One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in 2016, postulates the space of the festival as a safe heaven, a kind of a home, for the audiences and those migrants whose lives are shown in the films. A dialogue can be established as a result, an opening created between the two. The transformation of the humanitarian gaze into the migrant one is about a process of identification of the audiences with the migrants plight. This new identification, a migrant gaze (and voice) can be an indication of some modest political or social change a film festival may be able to achieve. The possibility of some social change is a key characteristic of the ‘migrant festive chronotope’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In the Introduction to her book Immigration Cinema in the New Europe Isolina Ballesteros presents one of the most comprehensive overviews of the existing literature on cinema engaged with the themes of migration (Ballesteros Citation2015).
2. ‘One World Film Festival’ from now on.
3. According to DEMAS, an umbrella organization for Czech NGOs supporting democratization, civil society and human rights globally, People in Need (PIN) ‘focuses on relief aid, development cooperation and support of human rights and democratic freedom. In the Czech Republic, People in Need implements social integration programs and provides informative and educational activities. Established in 1992 by Czech journalists and former dissidents, PIN is today one of the largest organizations of its kind in post-communist Europe and has implemented projects in forty countries over the past twenty years’ (DEMAS).
4. By deciding to include a film festival as part of their outreach and advocacy programme People in Need followed the paths of other human rights NGOs such Human Rights Watch which runs an extensive network of annual film festivals focussed on human rights issues. The main difference between the People in Need initiative and Human Rights Watch was People in Need origins in Central Europe and its links to the struggle for human rights associated with the anti-communist dissidents such as Václav Havel.
5. A Walnut Tree (Dir. Ammar Aziz, 2015) [Pakistan: refugee camps]
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Dorota Ostrowska
Dorota Ostrowska publishes in the areas of European film and television studies (Polish and French), film festival studies, and history of film and media production. Her publications include Reading the French New Wave: Critics, Writers and Art Cinema in France (2008), Popular Cinemas in East Central Europe: Film Cultures and Histories (with Zsuzsanna Varga and Francesco Pitassio) (2017), European Cinemas in the TV Age (with Graham Roberts) (2007). She is working on a monograph on the cultural history of international film festivals with special focus on questions of space.