While the buzz is still being heard from the Cannes Film Festival, it can be easy to forget we’re nearing the midway point of the year, and that a lot has already happened in the cinematic world. It might seem like a lifetime ago, but just three months back, all eyes were on the Berlin Film Festival, and one of the films to walk away a winner was “Fire At Sea.”
Taking the Golden Bear in the documentary category, director Gianfranco Rosi‘s film focuses on the life of 12-year-old Samuele, who lives on Italy’s tiny, southernmost island Lampedusa, while buzzing at the fringes and borders is the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe. Here’s the official synopsis:
Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear winning documentary follows a 12-year-old boy living on the Lampedusa island in the middle of the sea.
Samuele goes to school, loves shooting his slingshot and going hunting. He likes land games, even though everything around him speaks of the sea and the men, women and children who try to cross it to get to his island. But his is not an island like the others, its name is Lampedusa and it is the most symbolic border of Europe, crossed by thousands of migrants in the last 20 years in search of freedom.
Our review called “Fire At Sea” “a thoughtful, deeply-felt and exquisitely observed film,” so be sure to keep it on your radar. It opens in the U.K. on June 10th, and will arrive in the U.S. via Kino Lorber. Watch the trailer above.
