FIRE AT SEA
Refugees all around the world are struggling through life, in this documentary see into the life of people taking the treacherous journey across the Medditeranean sea. Shot on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa documenting through the European migrant crisis and directed by Gianfranco Rosi. Focusing on the life of a twelve-year-old boy and the doctor that teats him, with it’s high reviews it has made it to one of the final nominees for this years Oscar Documentary movie short lists.
Winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary observes Europe’s migrant crisis from the vantage point of a Mediterranean island where hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing war and poverty, have landed in recent decades. Rosi shows the harrowing work of rescue operations but devotes most of the film to the daily rhythms of Lampedusa, seen through the eyes of a doctor who treats casualties and performs autopsies, and a feisty but anxious pre-teen from a family of fishermen for whom it is simply a peripheral fact of life. With its emphasis on the quotidian, the film reclaims an ongoing tragedy from the abstract sensationalism of media headlines. (New York Film Festival copy)
