This chapter takes to the sea in order to consider the opportunities and limitations of adopting the label of cinéma-monde as a critical framework and follows various vessels as they chart the potential contours of this concept. I will suggest that the aquatic point of entry to cinéma-monde offers a privileged vantage point from which to explore the contemporary parameters of global French-language cultural and linguistic spaces. The itineraries in these films invite consideration of the place of the French language and of France – both by its presence and by its absence – in the world in general and particularly vis-à-vis the nation's former colonies and current neighbours in a tenuously unified contemporary Europe. Floating films work against what Tim Bergfelder terms a ‘contained’ perspective (2005: 329) that divides national cinemas into discrete discursive categories. They are related to yet also more varied than ‘border-crossing films’, a category that, as Carrie Tarr theorises, ‘call attention to the porosity of national and cultural borders, but in so doing also expose the asymmetrical power relations between hosts and migrants, Western Europe and its others’ (2007: 7). The corpus I identify here invites us to think about borders and boundaries differently by decentring our actual and mental maps. More than crossing borders, these films probe at the contours of prevalent lines of demarcation, developing points of contact and calling binaries into question. Absent a clear centre in evident opposition with a periphery or multiple peripheries, borders lose some of their significance as barriers and take on characteristics of ‘borderlands’ (Balibar 2009) and ‘interzones’ (Halle 2014).

This chapter analyses five floating films and theorises sea voyages for work, migration and pleasure within the context of contemporary border theories, North-South migration debates, and cinematic production and distribution networks. While my analysis is attuned to the disparate motives and conditions of these sea voyages, I aim to use the liquid contexts that they all share to highlight connections between these productions. I will focus on five floating films: Diego Star (Frederick Pelletier, 2013, Canada/Belgium), Fidelio, l’odyssée d’Alice/Fidelio (Lucie Borleteau, 2014, France), Harragas (Merzak Alouache, 2009, Algeria/ France), L’iceberg (Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy, 2005, Belgium) and La pirogue (Moussa Touré, 2012, France/Senegal/ Germany).