Leaving Homeland: The Evolving Conceptualization of Migration in the Iranian Cinema of the 2010s

Abstract

Many of the Iranian films released inside Iran during the 2010s address the latest wave of Iranians’ emigrations since 2009. Examining the dominant tropes of migration in their narrative subsets, this article argues that the Iranian cinema of the last decade offers a paradigm shift in its conceptualization of migration which may reflect a gradual change in Iranian society. This study proposes that while some recent Iranian films have maintained the pre-established traditions of depicting the hosting countries of immigrants on utopic and/or dystopic terms, a high number of movies have instead presented temporary or permanent migration as a natural, self-evident, and righteous choice. Analyzing the representational strategies of these films obfuscates the imagined borders of a global community of Iranians and problematizes the classic definition of farangistan (foreign lands) by lessening its otherness from Iranshahr (the land of Iranians).