Mainstreaming migrant experience: Examining authorship, commercialism and political engagement in Finnish migrant cinema

In many European nations, there have been a significant number of cinematic explorations of the experiences of migrants, a trend often called migrant cinema. By contrast, in Finland, where large-scale immigration is a relatively new phenomenon, there have historically been very few mainstream films that include migrant characters and practically none that explore the circumstances of migrant protagonists. Since the late 2010s, that has slowly begun to change, primarily due to filmmakers of migrant backgrounds who have drawn from their autobiographical experiences when making mainstream migrant cinema in Finland. Their films are important as cinema has a key role in representing divergent social groups and providing spaces for their political engagement. However, in other European countries, mainstream migrant cinema has drawn criticism – even when made by migrant filmmakers – since commercialism is seen to lead to depoliticization and representations that are counterproductive to migrant emancipation. By examining two Finnish examples where the creative impetus came from filmmakers of migrant backgrounds, and taking into account publicly available interviews with them, this article provides more nuance to the discussion of authorship, commercialism and political engagement in migrant cinema.