WTI Magazine #84    2016 October 17
Author : Edoardo Peretti      Translation by:

"Fuocoammare" (Fire at Sea) by Gianfranco Rosi is the Italian candidate for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This does not mean that it will be among the five shortlisted movies that will actually run for the Oscar: if the Rosi film will be in the quintet will be decided by the Academy on January 24, 2017, which will choose between several movies from almost all around the world.

The most valorous opponents should be the French "Elle" by Paul Verhoeven; the Chilean "Neruda" by Pablo Larrian; the Spaniard "Julieta" by the acclaimed director Pedro Almodovar; the Venezuelan "Desde Allá" that already won the Venice Golden Lion; and the celebrated german movie "Toni Erdmann". Even so, surprises are not excluded.

The decision to focus on Rosi's film was in some way unexpected and courageous, and took place against the favorite and blockbuster "Perfetti Sconosciuti", a bitter comedy about the frustrations, secrets and lies of a group of old friends. "Fuocoammare" is a documentary focusing on what is a dramatic topic that is hitting Europe in general and Italy, especially in this period: the continuous and massive flow of migrants, on improvised boats, from Africa. The documentary shows the point of view of one of the hottest places for this phenomenon, in which the emergency is highest and at the same time the inevitable compassion can be found: the island of Lampedusa, Sicily.

In addition to describing the reality of that place now grappling with a daily emergency, the documentary tries above all to tell its most tragic and less tabloid aspects. An example of this approach are the sequences without filters and shortcuts dedicated to the death of those who shipwrecked, and to their bodies floating or coming ashore. The documentary confirms Gianfranco Rosi's poetic vein, already evident in his previous works, and is part of a more general development of documentary films, increasingly less traditional - different from purely chronicle reportage – while trying to grasp reality in its more emotional, tragic, profound and even poetic essence. It was already evident in Rosi's previous film, "Sacro Gra", winner of the Venice Golden Lion in 2014, a documentary about the ring road around Rome that becomes a kind of human comedy populated by weird, paradoxical and tragic characters, who actually exist.

In "Fuocoammare" Rosi slams in the viewer's face the tragedy of the situation in Lampedusa, which is forced to welcome the migrants in their desperate journey, without discounts and not seeking a delicate way to describe the drama. A proof of all of this is the camera that follows and lingers on the bodies without life of the migrants who could not survive, lying on the beach almost as a warning to our consciences. It is most certainly arguable that this way of using lifeless bodies may seem a little itchy, almost a blackmail; but it certainly is effective to raise attention and discussion towards the issue. The director wants to grow a bit more of humanity and compassion in the viewers, whatever their idea is about a difficult and divisive topic like emigration, and especially this kind of emigration and the hundreds and hundreds of deaths caused by it.

We will see whether the film will be shortlisted and then awarded by the jury of the Academy: it already won the 2016 Berlin Golden Bear, where it charmed the President of the jury, Meryl Streep, and besides there's the Academy frequent propensity to reward movies that deal with important delicate every day's topics.

We do not know if "Fuocoammare" deserves the prize; it certainly deserves a vision, and awareness.