'Floating Heritage' Films

'Floating Heritage' Films Synopsis

How does cinema construct cultural heritage? And to what extent is this heritage newly 'inherited' at the intersection of the national and the transnational?

Floating Heritage Films explores how a world of cinemas imagines the varied transcultural interactions of our globalized world. The term 'floating' indicates a range of border-crossing experiences, from the tourist's joyful voyages, to the struggles of migrant workers, to the anxiety faced by immigrants and refugees, and finally, the cross-border vectors of disease transmission.

Drawing upon Latin American thinkers like Fernando Ortiz, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Walter D. Mignolo, David Martin Jones analyses a diverse range of films including Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (You Won't Get Life Back Again) (India, 2011), El olivio (The Olive Tree) (Spain, 2016), Atlantique (Atlantics) (Senegal, 2019), Un cuento chino (Chinese Take-Away) (Argentina, 2011) and Gamgi (Flu) (South Korea, 2013). In doing so he maps the spectrum of world cinema's various global cinematic transcultural imaginings, which offers a distinct alternative from the neoliberal global imaginary so often identified in the post-Cold War world.