In transit zones, refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants live between homesickness, fear of deportation and hope for a different future. Forced migration produces specific narratives and memory in the building of their identities. In a historical moment where the struggle to control and manage the wave of migrants is challenging European ideas of full citizenship, the present research looks into cinematic representations of borderlands and their inhabitants searching to explore how creative documentary practices could constitute counterpoints to stereotyped and negative representations on the global refugee crisis. To achieve that, I analyse recent documentaries that attempt to translate migrants’ subjectivities, vulnerabilities and agency into films, following visual registers concerned with their endeavour to cross the borders and reach Europe.