Environment Institute

Social Media

Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

For Twitter Feed click here

Migration and Settlement: Past News & Events

UCL Urban Migration Film Festival – 15th February, 2012

filmfest
Still from L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Searle Kochberg

To download a report of the film festival please click here.

The festival and symposium explored the impact migrants have on their physical, social, cultural and economic environment as well as how cultural, spatial, legal and ideological forces affect rights, mobility and settlement.

By showing a wide variety of film clips from various periods and settings of the past 70 years, we aimed to create an opportunity for an interdisciplinary dialogue raised by the selected films and film-making practices.

These questions related to: Journeys - how do migrants negotiate their environment whilst on the move? Transition - how do migrants adapt to new systems, shape their communities and create temporary environments? The festival ended with a session on Negotiation and Accommodation: with films on establishing roots, acculturation and myths of return.

Migrant experience in the built environment relates to settlement patterns, modes of acculturation, contextual legal and immigration systems, the divergence of different generations’ experiences. It may even lead to return to the place of origin, a move onwards, or – for the children of migrants – a visit through memories to places from the past.

An interdisciplinary panel of experts from architecture, anthropology, film studies, planning, psychiatry and art were joined by several of the film-makers, who introduced their own films and participated in discussions at the end of each session. The programme included sections from: Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog, The Statue of Liberty by Ken Burns, The Invisibles: by Gael García Bernal and Handsworth Songs by John Akomfrah. Films by Zelimir Zilnik, Marc Isaacs and Sérgio Tréfaut were among the many others.

The festival was organised by Professor Laura Vaughan, Rastko Novakovic, Searle Kochberg and Dr Sonia Arbaci. It was funded by the UCL Environment Institute.

Sign up to the EVENT BLOG here