My dissertation critically assesses the evolution of Beur productions (1980s - 21st century) with reference to the socio-cultural and economic conditions of their development. I am interested in identity (re)construction in the work of three Algerian origin artists in France: Mehdi Charef, Tony Gatlif and Farid Boudjellal. I examine texts and films like Le thé au Harem d’Archi Ahmed (1983), Petit Polio (1999), Je suis né d’une cigogne (1999) and Exils (2004). My interest lies in analyzing the impact that these “minor” artists and their chosen art genres have on mainstream cultural productions. Besides focusing on the second generation immigrants in France (the Beurs), the authors challenge also the canonical “Frenchness” or “Europeanness” beyond borders, thus promoting the concept of cultural hybridity. I argue that constant displacement, change of political, social and cultural contexts have significantly transformed the dynamics between the center and the periphery. Furthermore, I provide evidence that “French” identity has undergone a continuous transformation over time and has become a substantially diverse and lively construct. I stand for a new approach to the fixed French identities, one that includes a pluriethnic and multilingual francophone body, and for a redefinition of cultural boundaries reshaping the relationship between self and otherness. My thesis has two major sections (language and space) divided respectively into four chapters. The first two chapters look at different ways in which the Franco-Maghrebi literature and cinema forge new ways of expression within French language and culture. The first chapter is mainly focused on the importance of mastering French by the Beur artists, while in the second chapter I insist on more elaborate stylistic dimensions such as postcolonial irony in the given texts. The last two chapters critically analyze how the artistic productions of Charef, Gatlif and Boudjellal situate themselves in the French socio-cultural context by trespassing borders of a cultural, literary, linguistic and geographical order. This multiple border crossing leads to a movement of these texts to different locations within the main culture. At the esthetic level, this movement between different borders promotes the innovation and the creativity that the Beur artists bring to France.

My dissertation critically assesses the evolution of Beur productions (1980s - 21st century) with reference to the socio-cultural and economic conditions of their development. I am interested in identity (re)construction in the work of three Algerian origin artists in France: Mehdi Charef, Tony Gatlif and Farid Boudjellal. I examine texts and films like Le thé au Harem d’Archi Ahmed (1983), Petit Polio (1999), Je suis né d’une cigogne (1999) and Exils (2004). My interest lies in analyzing the impact that these “minor” artists and their chosen art genres have on mainstream cultural productions. Besides focusing on the second generation immigrants in France (the Beurs), the authors challenge also the canonical “Frenchness” or “Europeanness” beyond borders, thus promoting the concept of cultural hybridity. I argue that constant displacement, change of political, social and cultural contexts have significantly transformed the dynamics between the center and the periphery. Furthermore, I provide evidence that “French” identity has undergone a continuous transformation over time and has become a substantially diverse and lively construct. I stand for a new approach to the fixed French identities, one that includes a pluriethnic and multilingual francophone body, and for a redefinition of cultural boundaries reshaping the relationship between self and otherness. My thesis has two major sections (language and space) divided respectively into four chapters. The first two chapters look at different ways in which the Franco-Maghrebi literature and cinema forge new ways of expression within French language and culture. The first chapter is mainly focused on the importance of mastering French by the Beur artists, while in the second chapter I insist on more elaborate stylistic dimensions such as postcolonial irony in the given texts. The last two chapters critically analyze how the artistic productions of Charef, Gatlif and Boudjellal situate themselves in the French socio-cultural context by trespassing borders of a cultural, literary, linguistic and geographical order. This multiple border crossing leads to a movement of these texts to different locations within the main culture. At the esthetic level, this movement between different borders promotes the innovation and the creativity that the Beur artists bring to France.

La migration est l’une des questions les plus troublantes dans le monde contemporain. Elle expose la fragilité de l’être humain qui se trouve dans une situation de changement radical et de transition tumultueuse. À cause de la violence qui est impliquée dans ce processus, le sujet plonge dans une position de vulnérabilité aiguë et la représentation de cet aspect dans la littérature et le cinéma francophones est saisissante et puissante. Notre travail considère le vécu difficile du migrant et la violence qui est exercée sur ce dernier à partir de trois grands axes ; le point de départ, le voyage et le point d’arrivée. Les auteurs et les réalisateurs qui, dans leurs œuvres, traitent de la figure du migrant ou l’incluent, révèlent la réalité complexe de l’expérience de la migration qui, dans la conscience collective occidentale, est généralement tronquée, simplifiée et/ou complètement écartée. L’étude de la représentation littéraire et filmique permet d’explorer les stratégies artistiques qui sont employées pour dire et montrer l’expérience au lecteur/spectateur et d’établir un réseau de connexions qui concrétise la souffrance et le tourment que l’Autre, pris dans le piège de la migration, subit. / Migration is one of the most disturbing and soul-searching issues in the contemporary world. It exposes the fragility of the human being who finds himself in a situation of radical change and turbulent transition. Owing to the violence involved in the process, the subject is plunged in a position of acute vulnerability and the representation of this aspect in francophone literature and cinema is striking and powerful. This work examines the difficult life of the migrant and the violence that is exerted on the latter from three main axes; the starting point or the point of departure, the voyage and the point of arrival. The authors and filmmakers who, in their works, deal with the figure of the migrant or include it, reveal the complex reality of the experience of migration which, in Western collective consciousness, is usually truncated, simplified and/or dismissed completely. The study of the literary and cinematic representation allows for the exploration of the artistic strategies employed to transmit the experience to the reader/spectator and for the establishment of a network of connections which concretises the suffering and the torment that the Other, caught in the snare of migration, endures.

This thesis explores the films produced in the francophone Belgian region of Wallonia as a case study for the configuration of what will be termed a ‘transnational regional’ cinema. The first section of this dynamic is considered in relation to film and cultural policy, which problematizes the possible formation of a clearly delineated regional or ‘national’ cinema. This presupposes a reconfiguring of the transnational along the lines of the regional and the linguistic communities of Belgium, which, in essence, pertains to how production, distribution and exhibition mechanisms function within the devolved region of Wallonia. This section therefore focuses on film policy as well as a macro- and micro- economic analysis of the industry in order to consider the perceived imbalance between Belgian and French cinema. In the second half, the thesis develops a textual analysis of a series of case study films to consider how cultural film policy and francophone Belgian identity is imagined and then imaged on screen. The interplay between the transnational and the regional is then nuanced by the approaches to the ‘transnational regional’ aesthetic. This aesthetic includes the visualization of the rural and urban Walloon landscape in Eldorado (Bouli Lanners, 2008) and Ultranova (Lanners, 2006) and the ‘marked’ regional landscape in Cages (Olivier Masset-Depasse, 2006). The shift in location across the conterminous border with France due to the logic of film funding engenders the approach to the ‘marked’ regional space in Masset-Depasse’s film. The final chapter tracks this aesthetic through to the works of the Dardenne brothers and in particular Le gamin au vélo (Dardenne brothers, 2011) in order to approach the construction of a peripheral spatial formation through corporeal movements. This therefore necessitates a consideration of how the Dardenne brothers’ film chimes with waves of European filmmaking, thereby revealing a regional space that is conceptualized as de-centred.