Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema This exciting and original volume offers the first comprehensive critical study of the recent profusion of European films and television addressing sexual migration and seeking to capture the lives and experiences of LGBTIQ+ migrants and refugees. Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema argues that embodied cinematic representations of the queer migrant, even if at times highly ambivalent and contentious, constitute an urgent new repertoire of queer subjectivities and socialities that serve to undermine the patrolled borders of gender and sexuality, nationhood and citizenship, and refigure or queer fixed notions and universals of identity like ‘Europe’ and national belonging based on the model of the family. At stake ethically and politically is the elaboration of a ‘transborder’ consciousness and aesthetics that counters the homonationalist, xenophobic and homo/trans-phobic representation of the ‘migrant to Europe’ figure rooted in the toxic binaries of othering (the good vs bad migrant, host vs guest, indigenous vs foreigner). Bringing together 15 contributors working in different national film traditions and embracing multiple theoretical perspectives, this powerful and timely collection will be of major interest to both specialists and students in film and media studies, gender and queer studies, migration/mobility studies, cultural studies, and aesthetics. James S. Williams is Professor of Modern French Literature and Film at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of (among others) The Erotics of Passage: Pleasure, Politics, and Form in the Later Work of Marguerite Duras (1997), The Cinema of Jean Cocteau (2006), Jean Cocteau (a ‘Critical Life’) (2008), Space and Being in Contemporary French Cinema (2013) and Encounters with Godard: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics (2016). He is also co-editor of The Cinema Alone: Essays on the Work of Jean- Luc Godard 1985–2000 (2000), Gender and French Cinema (2001), For Ever Godard: The Cinema of Jean-Luc Godard (2004), Jean-Luc Godard . Documents (2006) (catalogue of the Godard exhibition held at the Centre Pompidou, Paris) and May ’68: Rethinking France’s Last Revolution (2011). His most recent monograph, Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty , was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. Global Gender The Global Gender series provides original research from across the human- ities and social sciences, casting light on a range of topics from international authors examining the diverse and shifting issues of gender and sexuality on the world stage. Utilising a range of approaches and interventions, these texts are a lively and accessible resource for both scholars and upper level students from a wide array of fields including Gender and Women’s Studies, Sociology, Politics, Communication, Cultural Studies and Literature. Muslim Women’s Rights Tabassum Fahim Ruby Gender in the 2016 US Presidential Election Dustin Harp Latina Outsiders Remaking Latina Identity Grisel Y. Acosta Early Motherhood in Digital Societies Ideals, anxieties and ties of the perinatal Ranjana Das Nordic Gender Equality Policy in a Europeanisation Perspective Edited by Knut Dørum Gender-Based Violence in Latin American and Iberian Cinemas Edited by Rebeca Maseda García, María José Gámez Fuentes, and Barbara Zecchi Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema Edited by James S. Williams For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Global-Gender/book-series/RGG Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema Edited by James S. Williams First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, James S. Williams; individual chapters, the contributors The right of James S. Williams to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www. taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-20938-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-26424-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of illustrations viii List of contributors xii Acknowledgements xvi Introduction 1 1 Queering the migrant: being beyond borders 3 JAMES S. WILLIAMS PART I Trans/migration of bodies and borders 31 2 The ghostly queer migrant: queering time, place, and family in contemporary German cinema 33 LEANNE DAWSON 3 Trans-ing gender boundaries and national borders: rethinking identity in Merzak Allouache’s Chouchou (2003) and Angelina Maccarone’s Fremde Haut/Unveiled (2005) 47 C.L. QUINAN 4 Transnational and migrant queer affects in two Basque films 59 ALFREDO MARTÍNEZ-EXPÓSITO AND SANTIAGO FOUZ-HERNÁNDEZ 5 Queering the cinematic field: migrant love and rural beauty in God’s Own Country (2017) and A Moment in the Reeds (2017) 72 JAMES S. WILLIAMS vi Contents 6 Facing the queer migrant in Nordic Noir 87 LOUISE WALLENBERG PART II Refuge, (non-)hospitality, and (anti-)utopia 101 7 Post-communist and queer: Eastern European queer migrants on screen 103 FANNI FELDMANN 8 Eastern Boys (2013): hospitality, trauma, kinship, and the state 115 MURAT AYDEMIR 9 Almost haven: queer migrants’ temporary refuge in Tel Aviv in Paper Dolls (2006), The Bubble (2006), and Out in the Dark (2012) 129 NIR COHEN 10 We are all in Xenialand: queer poetics, citizenship, and hospitality in Panos H. Koutras’s Xenia (2014) 141 DIMITRIS PAPANIKOLAOU PART III Space, belonging, and (anti-)sociality 157 11 Inner exiles: migrant representation and queer belongings in recent Irish films 159 ALLISON MACLEOD 12 From migration to drift: forging queer migrant spaces and transborder relations in contemporary French cinema 171 JAMES S. WILLIAMS 13 Trans-regional optics and queer affiliations in the work of Jonas Carpignano 188 DEREK DUNCAN 14 Inside out: invaders, migrants, borders, and queering the Belgian family 201 MICHAEL GOTT Contents vii 15 Integration, perforce?: (de)queering, (de)abjectifying, and victimising the migrant and minority figure in contemporary European cinema 215 JEREMI SZANIAWSKI PART IV Curating queer migrant cinema 229 16 Curating queer migrant cinema: interview between Sudeep Dasgupta and James S. Williams 231 Filmography 243 Bibliography 248 Index 269 Illustrations 1.1 Director Santi Zegarra (second from right) with (left to right) Cate Naluwooza, Roman Sorokine and Giovanna Rincon in Re-naissances /Re-births: The Journey of the Soul ( 2018 ) 5 1.2 Adja (Babetida Sadjo) sharing a lighter moment with Eldar (Patrik Nökkvi Pétursson) in And Breathe Normally ( 2018 ) 10 1.3 Esmail (Ardalan Esmaili) weighing up his options in the bar in Charmøren/The Charmer ( 2017 ) 19 2.1 Gespenster /Ghosts ( 2005 ): Nina (Julia Hummer) discovers a heart-shaped mole exactly like that of the kidnapped child, Marie 37 2.2 Auf der anderen Seite /The Edge of Heaven ( 2007 ): lovers Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay) and Lotte (Patrycia Ziolkowska) pictured in the detention centre where the former is being held 40 2.3 Ghosted (2009 ): Sophie (Inga Busch) at the video installation of Remembrance , with deceased Ai-Ling (Huan-Ru Ke) projected onto the wall behind her 41 2.4 Fremde Haut /Unveiled ( 2005 ): Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai), passing as Siamak, picking cabbage for the Sauerkraut factory with work colleague and soon-to-be partner, Anne (Anneke Kim Sarnau) 44 3.1 Fariba/Siamak (Jasmin Tabatabai) in Fremde Haut /Unveiled ( 2005 ) 49 3.2 Chouchou (Gad Elmaleh) arriving in Paris in Chouchou (2003 ) 52 3.3 Marriage of Chouchou (Gad Elmaleh) and Stanislas (Alain Chabat) in Chouchou (2003 ) 54 4.1 Rafa (Germán Alcarazu) and Ibra (Adil Koukouh) in A escondidas /Hidden Away ( 2014 ) 64 Illustrations ix 4.2 Ander (Josean Bengoetxea) and José (Cristhian Esquivel) in Ander (2009 ) 64 5.1 The very picture of New Gay Sincerity: Johnny (Josh O’Connor) opening up to Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) after their first night together in God’s Own Country ( 2017 ) 76 5.2 ‘I will fuck with you’: Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) making his intentions known after Johnny (Josh O’Connor) has insulted him again in God’s Own Country ( 2017 ) 78 5.3 and 5.4 The reversible field: Tareq (Boodi Kabbani) and Leevi (Janne Puustinen) in A Moment in the Reeds ( 2017 ), their sameness emphasised by the shared colour tone of their t-shirts (grey-blue in 5.3, maroon in 5.4) 83 6.1 (Davor) Alexej Manvelov and Christian (Adam Pålsson) in season one of Innan vi dör /Before we Die ( 2017 ) 93 6.2 Berber/French detective Kahina Zadi (Leïla Bekhti) and Swedish/Sami prosecutor Anders Harnesk (Gustaf Hammarsten) in Midnattssol /Midnight Sun ( 2016 ) 96 7.1 Flying towards the imaginary West in Another Way (1982 ) 107 7.2 The embodiment of the desired West: Lana (Jelena Ðokić) in Take a Deep Breath ( 2004 ) 110 7.3 Shaming the misbehaving