Migrant women’s agency and the responsibility towards the other in B. Lojkine’s film Hope

According to Pew Research conducted in 2018, sub-Saharan immigration to Europe has increased significantly in the last ten years. Though there has been a slight change in the destination of the migrants, many still choose Europe. Their journey from their countries of origin to Europe is long and tormenting, and they must cross through North Africa. While Morocco has always been a transitional country in this trek, it has now become a permanent home for many. My aim in this article is not to pursue the legal aspect of migration and how nations have manipulated it but to focus on the experience of subjectivity of sub-Saharan migrants in Boris Lojkine’s film Hope (2014). My analysis will focus on the leading character, Hope, as a marginalized female other who challenges our moral and ethical responsibilities as she and her male partner, Léonard, face ‘death’ on this perilous journey. Building on Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of the primacy of the face, my discussion is expanded to include the concepts of vulnerability, otherness and belonging.