The Porosity of the Hexagon: Border Crossings in Contemporary French Cinema

This article analyses the range of fiction films centring on migrants produced or co-produced in France between 1998 and 2004, including those set outside the EU, tentatively categorising them as either 'pre border-crossing films', 'border-crossing films' or 'post border-crossing films'. Taking into account the different origins and histories of the migrants represented (primarily East Europeans, North Africans, Sub-Saharan Africans and Kurds), it examines the extent to which films featuring spatial border crossings call attention to the porosity of national and cultural borders and at the same time expose the asymmetrical power relations between hosts and migrants, Western Europe and its others.