Romanian Migrant Women in Paris:

Gender Representations in Angus Macqueen's The Last Peasants

Abstract

Angus Macqueen’s trilogy The Last Peasants (2003) aims at making a stand in the current debate on
the causes and effects of migration from East European former Communist countries to the West. Focusing on
the dramatic stories of several Romanian families from the village of Budeşti (Maramureş), the British director’s
documentaries foreground the picture of an old rural culture in decline; within this framework, individual
portraits of characters desperately wishing to make a better living abroad are clearly delineated. As special
attention seems to be paid to the re-negotiation of gender roles in Romanian rural communities ‘lost in
transition’, two films of the trilogy (Journeys and A Good Wife) examine the re-shaping of women migrants’
identity in the process of intercultural (Romanian – French) interaction. Based on research conducted in the
framework of the EU-funded FP7 collaborative project, Gender, Migration and Intercultural Interactions in
the Mediterranean and South-East Europe: an interdisciplinary perspective (Ge.M.IC.) (2008-2011), the
paper proposes an in-depth analysis of Angus Macqueen’s filmic texts with a stress on representations of gender
and cultural differences that influence, in the larger context of migration, the dynamics of established cultural
practices and hierarchies in both the sending and the receiving societies.