It is hard to imagine a film more appropriate for this moment on earth than Meditrranea. The film looks at the trials of overland and oversea migration, the difficulty of assimilation, the blunt reality of racism, and the violence that racism inspires.
The BBC reports that more than 750,000 migrants arrived in Europe in 2015 alone. More than 2,800 men and women and children have died making the crossing from Tripoli to Italy, the journey undertaken in Mediterranea. 2015 in Europe has in part been defined by the rising number of refugees and migrants on the move. A Wikipedia page already details the European Migrant Crisis of 2015.
Add to that the continuing violence against black men and women, in Europe and the United States, and Mediterranea becomes a film that feels exceedingly urgent. Today in the US, Minneapolis and Chicago are home to on-going protests over the shootings of black men by police. In 2010 it was Rosarno, Italy, the site of the riots that inspired this film. The cases are not the same, but the conflicts were created in a similar tragic manner: black men shot to death.
In one scene in Mediterranea, two black men are killed by whites, causing an impromptu protest by African migrants and laborers that is eventually confronted by police in riot gear. They march, and riot, all while chanting “stop shooting black people.” One could imagine that scene taking place in any city in Europe and America.
Mediterranea is an Italian film, though it’s mostly in French; it tells the story of two men from Burkina Faso, Aviya and Abas, who travel with dozens of other migrants by foot across Algeria and Libya to Tripoli, where they board a boat headed into the Mediterranean Sea. The journey is difficult and the outcome is uncertain. In a storm, the boat capsizes, and the group is picked up and brought to the Calabria region of Italy.
The night Aviya and Abas arrive, they connect with a family member of Aviya’s, who gives them food, money, and a warm welcome. Another friend shows them around the city they’ll live in, Rosarno, and eventually to their home. Which is when reality starts to set in: they’ll be living in a tent made of sheets and flags sewn together, held up by a log. In the morning they get their first look at their surroundings and find themselves in destitute poverty, living in a tent city.
The men find work at an orchard in Rosarno, Italy for the season. Aviya (Koudous Seihon) has a daughter in Burkina; he works hard and is rewarded with additional jobs and responsibility. Abas (Alassane Sy), younger than Aviya and single, feels abused by white employers who reward his work with low wages and no respect.
Aviya and Abas are are economic migrants, leaving their families in search of living wages. They deserve these things because people deserve the basic necessities of life, but the men are not heroes. And while the treatment of the African community in Italy is harsh in Mediterranea, they find good men and women in Italy, too. Rocco, Aviya’s employer, brings him to dinner with his family. A child who works in Rosarno’s black-market, Pio, is a kind kid who becomes Aviya’s friend.
The relationships formed, with other Africans and with Italians, are tested by the unique needs of immigration. Both men are on 3-month permits, hoping to secure work permits and eventually find papers for residency. The economic hardship is complicated by the constant racism and abuse from the local white population. These two conflicts create an ever-present knot in the life of Aviya, who wants only to work, and provide for his daughter at home. As that knot tightens, it leaves Aviya desperate and moving towards a devastating , inevitable climax.
To say that 750,000 migrants have arrived in Europe is to avoid the fact that each one of those migrants has submitted to a perilous, uncertain fate. Mediterranea captures the timeliness a global crisis, but it does so primarily by telling us a single story, inspired by the life of Koudous Seihon, who plays Aviya. The 29-year-old actor is a close friend of the director, Jonas Carpignano, and has been since Carpignano convinced Seihon to make a short on the subject in 2012, A Chjàna.
Carignano’s short was made in the wake of the Rosarno race riots, and Mediterranea gives him an opportunity to explore in depth the lives of that event’s participants.
With Mediterranea, writer-director Carpignano revisits the Italian neorealism of the nation’s cinematic history. Carpignano commits his documentary-style handheld camera to the African migrant perspective and he never wavers. He does not pull away when white men on the street harass African women, nor does he flinch when desperate African men smash windows and burn cars. Carpignano’s direction creates empathy without creating romantic figures. His interest isn’t idealizing migrants but creating a portrait of migrant life.
In doing so, Carpignano succeeds by avoiding the bleeding heart of Hope and Optimism, opting instead for the realities at hand: the rejection of locals, the camaraderie of friends and the longing for family.
Mediterranea opens on December 4th at the Film Society at St. Anthony Main.
[…] #8: Mediterranea […]