The battle of truth and fiction: Documentary storytelling and Middle Eastern refugee discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article problematizes cinematic representations of refugees in documentary film, with a particular focus on documentary depictions of Middle Eastern refugees and the ethical aspects of such representations. It argues that documentary production about Middle Eastern refugees faces two challenges simultaneously: the representational challenges of refugee documentary as a genre, with its potential for exploitation, sensationalism and emotional manipulation; and the orientalist tradition that continues to influence much of the discourse about the Middle East. Two documentary films are discussed as case studies: James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments, which illustrates a number of typical, recurring aspects of orientalist representational discourse in Middle East-focused western documentary film-making; and Matthew Firpo’s Refuge: Human Studies from the Refugee Crisis, which highlights the problematic phenomenon of the singular “Syrian Refugee” image, a persistent media construction since the beginning of the European refugee crisis.