Refugees as Innocent Bodies, Directors as Political Activists: Humanitarianism and Compassion in European Cinema

This article explores the ways in which refugees and humanitarianism appear in European film productions. It argues that European films often present images of innocent and victimized refugees in order to raise compassion of their liberal spectators. In the meanwhile their directors are praised for their humanitarian activism as they are considered to save refugees and their suffering from anonymity and placing their stories and humanity on the screen. Examining a number of European productions of the 2000s (Children of Men, Dheepan, In This World, Terraferma, and Welcome) this study suggests that politics of humanitarianism and of filmmaking on refugees share a similar problematic approach: in order to prove refugee eligibility for asylum and to raise compassion, they seek to establish the precarity and innocence of refugees, especially through showing their bodily pain.Este artículo explora las formas en que los refugiados y el humanitarismo aparecen en las producciones cinematográficas europeas. Sostiene que las películas europeas a menudo presentan imágenes de refugiados inocentes y victimizados para aumentar la compasión de sus espectadores liberales. Mientras tanto, sus directores son elogiados por su activismo humanitario, ya que se considera que salvan a los refugiados y su sufrimiento del anonimato y ponen sus historias y humanidad en la pantalla. Este estudio examina algunas producciones europeas de los años 2000 (Children of Men, Dheepan, In This World, Terraferma, y Welcome). Se sugiere así que la política del humanitarismo y del cine sobre los refugiados comparten un enfoque problemático: para probar la elegibilidad del refugiado para el asilo y para elevar la compasión, buscan demostrar la precariedad y la inocencia de los refugiados, especialmente enseñando su dolor corpora