ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the extents to which the road movie Retorno a Hansala contests stereotypical portrayals of Moroccan characters in Spanish cinema. The film succeeds in invoking a certain redistribution of the, offering a political input that could help modify the historically conflictive relationship between Moroccans and Spaniards. These films often showed the perspective of the Spanish citizen and viewer at the same time as they exposed different discriminatory attitudes towards migrants. With this film Gutierrez innovates in themes, spaces, and characters when compared to the previous Spanish films representing Moroccan migrants. The initial chaos at the beginning of the film has become now a peaceful image that offers a brighter future, although this future seems more obvious for Martin than for anybody else in the film. With regard to this initial scene, the film is in a way empowering the migrant not just with human life but also with political contestation.
