Memories of migration: tracing the past through movement in film

This essay offers a comparative and multidirectional study of filmic representations and memory work dealing with flight and migration by means of short video films, experimental documentaries, African feature film and Hollywood cinema. Given that all selected films are deeply concerned with the question of how we collectively recollect individual movements, the mnemonic cartographies discussed here describe contemporary routes refugees and migrants may take within Africa, from the African continent to Europe as well as those passages Holocaust survivors took when escaping the horror of fascism in continental Europe during the Third Reich. A narrative feature that connects all films suggests that remembering carries a variety of ethical implications and moral demands since it often stands in close relation with individual suffering as well as attempts to explain and vindicate collective crimes and atrocities. Movement in film hence offers a framework in which the film-maker, the actors, and the audience share experiences of visiting, revisiting, exploring, and illuminating memories of migration.