Abstract

Filmed on Linosa in 2010, Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma shows the struggles of a small island community, of the migrants who manage to reach it, and the difficult interactions between the two. Relying on both a sociological and a waste studies approach, this article adds a new perspective not only on migrants, seen and perceived as trash, but also on locals, and it displays how both these groups are victims of the Italian government and neoliberal economy, and share the same sense of precariousness.