Queering Cosmopolitan Futurity: Sailing into the Unknown in Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn response to this special issue’s call for thinking of new ways of living collectively in the present and the future, this article brings queer theories of temporality into conversation with cosmopolitanism. It does so through a reading of the 2011 film Terraferma. Set on the small Mediterranean island of Linosa, Terraferma follows an Italian family who rescue migrants they find stranded in the sea, taking two of the migrants into their home, a pregnant woman named Sara and her son, Omar. What follows is an examination of the relationship between ethics, kinship, and futurity that is also a critique of the heteronormative ways we usually imagine political organisation. As we watch the family help Sara give birth, and then attempt to sneak her and her children off the island, we see them prioritise her future over their own. The film, therefore, invites viewers to think about our ethical obligations to each other by embracing a kind of non-futurity that is both radical and queer.