This study explores the representation of international migration on screen and how it has
gained prominence and salience in European filmmaking over the past 100 years. Using Polish
migration as a key example due to its long-standing cultural resonance across the continent
this book moves beyond a director-oriented approach and beyond the dominant focus on
postcolonial migrant cinemas. It succeeds in being both transnational and longitudinal by
including a diverse corpus of more than 150 films from some twenty different countries of
which Roman Poläski¿s The Tenant Jean-Luc Godard¿s Passion and Krzysztof Kie¿lowski¿s Trois
couleurs: Blanc are the best-known examples. Engaging with contemporary debates on
modernisation and Europeanisation the author proposes the notion of ¿close Otherness¿ to
delineate the liminal position of fictional characters with a Polish background. Polish
Migrants in European Film 1918-2017 takes the reader through a wide range of genres from
interwar musicals to Cold War defection films from communist-era exile right up to the
contemporary moment. It is suitable for scholars interested in European or Slavic studies as
well as anyone who is interested in topics such as identity construction ethnic representation
East-West cultural exchanges and transnationalism.
