Specters of Migration: Haunting anomalies in Jupiter’s Moon (2017), Europe (2022), and The Quiet Migration (2023)

This work connects the conditions of non-belonging and displacement with visual expressions of spectrality, hauntology and the otherworldly. Through an analysis of Jupiter’s Moon; (2017), Europe; (2022) and The Quiet Migration; (2023), I examine how the authenticity and realism of migration narratives intersect with the spectral enchantment of the otherworldly. The analysis highlights the shift in migration fiction toward the realm of haunting and explores the use of spectral and supernatural elements to convey experiences of unsettlement, alienation and grief. Through these films, I revisit Derrida’s notion of the spectre—a figure that exists in the liminal space between life and death, visibility and invisibility, and materiality and immateriality. Overall, I offer a typology of migrant engagement with spectres and haunting figures: from living with spectres, to becoming spectre, to inhabiting spectral spaces. I argue that the presence of spectrality in these films serves as a tool for crafting a visual counter-narrative of migration, demonstrating how haunting representations of mobile subjects disrupt coherent, naturalized and stable conceptions of nations, identities and borders.