The Figure of the Refugee Adolescent in European Cinema 2009-2016

Abstract

This thesis examines representations of the refugee adolescent in European cinema between 2009 and 2016, drawing upon migration in cinema, the phenomenological approach, film genre, adolescent studies, and theories about encounters with the Other. The thesis is based on three case studies, each from a different European country (France, Germany, Denmark) and different film genre (Melodrama, Comedy, and Documentary, respectively). Each chapter investigates the representation of the adolescent refugee, focusing on the dyad relationship with the European hosts that the refugees encountered upon arrival to the continent. Through this examination and taking into consideration other aspects – such as the social agenda towards refugees in the specific country, the use of genre conventions to convey and mediate the refugee story, and the transformative characteristics of adolescence – this study aims to provide an original reading of the encounter between the local European and the Other. According to the new perspective offered by this thesis, the two sides of the dyad should not be thought of as only different and distanced; rather, the two are also similar, able to form the meaningful connections that in turn generate a change in the lives of both. Unlike other media outlets and their representations of the refugee crisis, this thesis shows the power of cinema to bring the crisis into homes, daily lives, and internal domestic dynamics. By applying the phenomenological approach, the thematic analyses portray the processes that the films and characters evoke, strengthening the argument that cinema can create a new discourse within these meaningful relations; and the hope that this new type of discourse, one that outlines similarities rather than differences, can decrease the anxiety and fear that the Other evokes.

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ORCID for Tim Bergfelder: orcid.org/0000-0001-6585-6123

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