Future Imperfect: Some Onward Perspectives on Migrant and Diasporic Film Practice

Abstract

Film criticism generally bases itself on the finished film as fait accompli, as if the film, once made, were self-evidently a necessary and indispensable part of the cinemalandscape. But this is not the experience of the filmmaker, whose creative arc will be strewn with rejected scripts, false starts, failed finance and aborted shoots. This may apply doubly to the migrant or diasporic film-maker facing additional challenges of access or entitlement. The most passionate personal statement may be the hardest to finance and the best but thorniest screenplay may never be shot.