Launch of documentaries co-produced with transnational families in France

The project’s French team, based at the University of Aix-Marseille, have produced two documentary films resulting from their collaboration with transnational families negotiating caring relationships across continents. The films draw on ethnographic research conducted with transnational families, some of whom are now living in the south of France.

Film 1: Out of Sight, Close to the Heart (Lejos de los ojos, cerca del corazón), produced by Polina Palash and Luc Thauvin at the University of Aix-Marseille

This documentary is based on ethnographic research about intergenerational support within a Colombian family shaped by migration for over two decades. Spanning Colombia, France, Spain, and the United States, family members make daily efforts to maintain connections despite the physical and temporal distances between them. Women from different generations play a key role in preserving family ties and wellbeing. This research-creation offers a glimpse into the everyday life of a transnational family ‘here and there,’ while also serving as a piece of family memory for its protagonists.

The research combined life course and trajectories perspectives to address the care and social protection dynamics among transnational families, in a context of complex mobilities across three countries: Colombia (country of origin), Spain and France (countries of destination).

Film 2: Around the Tanur , produced by Assaf Dahdah, Gaël Marsaud and Burhan Roto

Build a tanur, make the bread. Settle in and start living. Coming from overseas, talking about the past. A Yezidi family deals with exile, reconfigures kinship between France and Iraq, and tells its story about working in the fields.

This movie is the result of a collaboration between three directors, Assaf Dahdah (CR CNRS in Geography (UMR ART-Dev), Gaël Marsaud and Burhan Roto, and is a hybrid product that mixes social science research with community memory. The film is a co-production between the French CAREWELL-TF project team, and the directors, and springs from the project’s ethnographic research with members of a Yezidi family now living in France.

For more information, contact: Professor Virginie Baby-Collin, Email: virginie.baby-collin@univ-amu.fr

For more films from the research project, check out our YouTube channel and subscribe: @CAREWELLTransnationalFamilies