Migrationsfilme als kritische Heimatfilme?

Overview & Synopsis

Since the collapse of communism, the number of Romanians working abroad has risen sharply. Almost 20% of the population now lives outside the country's borders. Transnational family structures with children or parents left behind in Romania and pluri-local lifestyles of migrants have quickly become an everyday phenomenon in Romanian society. The effects of this migration are of relevance to society as a whole and are therefore repeatedly reflected in literature, music and film. These media are inspired by real events, take up current discourses and construct their own fictional realities. In doing so, they convey certain world views and offer different perspectives on the topics they deal with. Between the end of the communist dictatorship in 1989 and 2022, 52 Romanian fictional short and feature films were made that explicitly place migration at the centre of their narrative stories. This volume examines how Romanian labour migration is dealt with in post-communist films, what image of the Romanian homeland and the ‘West’ is conveyed, how these spaces are aesthetically constructed through cinematic means and whether these works represent a new form of ‘critical homeland film’.