The Migrating Image
Following a fictional group of refugees across Europe, the film questions the overproduction of images surrounding real-life tragedies and deaths. Each segment takes its cue from the destination of the refugees, from the Mediterranean Sea to a warehouse somewhere in Belgrade. Where do all these images of refugees come from? How do they reshape the geography of Europe?
Within the raw and cold analysis of images in this 28-minute-long film, without being overly didactic, Stefan Kruse Jørgensen shows how artificial images can easily take the form of any function and purpose. By leaving out music and focusing strictly on found footage, The Migrating Image immerses us in the complex visual culture of a new media world. Jørgensen questions the possibility of a true depiction of “the migrant” because individuality easily blurs and blends into an amalgam, like a huge wave floating over European shores. Dehumanizing pictures of thousands of migrants are tangled up with exalting videos of Italian saviors. This raises difficult questions about the power of film as a medium and the dark and manipulative side of image production. While the film investigates the origin and meaning of its images, we are left alone on the slippery road to find the truth in them.
Aleksandra Ławska is a film programmer, former head of programming at Short Waves Festival, and project coordinator at the Ad Arte Cultural Foundation in Poznań, Poland. Ławska is a member of the preselection committee at the Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal and Glasgow Short Film Festival, as well as a member of the reading committee at European Short Pitch.
Intimate, emotional, and sometimes violent moments of farewell: men, women, and children leave their homes for an (unknown) future as migrants.