A teenage boy from Senegal and his best friend run away from home to try their luck at becoming musicians in Europe. They are completely unaware of the horrors they will have to face as they put their lives at risk to make the journey across the Sahara and the Mediterranean.
Io Capitano (Me Captain) won the Silver Lion for Best Director as well as eleven other awards at Venice, where it premiered. Next month it will come out in 20 African countries, as it campaigns for an Academy Award in the Best International Feature category. We asked director Matteo Garrone to talk about the film.
THE FILM VERDICT: It seems like poetic justice that the drama of immigration from Africa is taking Italian cinema to the world stage of the Academy Awards, given that Italy is the closest and often the first stop for those making the perilous journey from Africa. Can a film that touches the heartstrings like Me Captain educate audiences and illuminate the immigration experience? In short, can it change something?
MATTEO GARRONE: This is a film made with those who really made this odyssey and I think it can help — if not to change, then to raise the awareness of those who watch it. It can help us to see behind the numbers, the ritual counting of the living and the dead we’re used to on the TV news, and it can allow us to see that these people have the same desires we had when we were young, the same dreams of traveling. The film isn’t about people fleeing a life-or-death situation of poverty, war, climate change. It focuses on another type of immigration, let’s say one linked to globalization. Seventy per cent of Africa’s population is young and they have a constant window on our world: social media. They don’t have the knowledge we have to see the truth behind these shiny images. This is so human, to want to see the world and maybe find an opportunity to help their family. They want to travel, but while we jump on a plane, they have to put their lives at risk.
TFV: Watching the dangers faced by the two innocent boys, Seydou and Moussa, one wonders how typical they are. The shocking scenes of them crossing the desert on foot while people collapse along the way, the torture they undergo in a Libyan prison – are these scenes taken from reality? We have seen many images on TV of boats sinking under the weight of the passengers, but these other images are something new.
MATTEO GARRONE: This film began with listening. I listened to so many stories which all had something in common, and I put my abilities at their service. So it is a choral, ensemble film made along with the people who really made this journey through the desert, Libya, the sea – modern-day heroes. Sometimes I shouted “Action!” and they relived experiences I had no idea about. They were always looking into the monitor, helping me reconstruct their journey.
Every frame of the film is inspired by something that happened in real life. The last part of the film was inspired by a 15-year-old boy who now lives in Belgium and who was forced to steer a boat across the Mediterranean – never having set foot in a boat before in his life. And when he arrived in Europe after his heroic journey, he was thrown in jail as a human trafficker.
What pushed me to make this film was to give visual images to what you normally don’t see. Not only those who die in the desert and in Libya, but their departure from home, their relationship to their parents and the naïve way they leave home.
TFV: You found a wonderful lead actor in Seydou Sarr, who shows a wide range of emotions from his innocent love of his mother and his music to the horror, fear and courage he expresses during his long journey towards Europe. Where did you find him, and will we see him again on the big screen?
MATTEO GARRONE: In my opinion, the strength of the film is linked to Seydou’s extraordinary performance. His humanity and purity is in every shot. It creates empathy in the viewer so you experience his journey through his eyes. This is what cinema is all about: the ability to take the audience into a new dimension filled with emotions.
Seydou Sarr actually wants to become a soccer player! He came to do a screen test in a small town near Dakar, Senegal, at the urging of his mother and sister who are local amateur actors. I hope he will find other opportunities to use his talent and his great sensitivity. He’s also a musician: the songs heard over the end credits were written by him and his friend in the film, Moustapha Fall. You always take a risk when you choose an actor based on a screen test, but Seydou stepped into the character and gave him three-dimensionality. And humanity, innocence, and spiritual weight, which is so important. Because the film isn’t just a trip through horrors, it’s also a journey of hope and filled with great solidarity. Against a system of death and violence, the main character fights for his life from beginning to end.
TFV: After its world premiere at Venice, where it won 12 awards, the films has become a hit in Italy. What else is coming up in its international release?
MATTEO GARRONE: The film was very successful when it came out in Italy and will be in theaters through March, thanks to school programs for students. They view it as an adventure tale about a hero that gives them a perspective on the real situation of kids like themselves. It was screened for the European Parliament and in January it will be released in 20 African countries. I don’t think it will stem the tide of young and less-young Africans who want to come here, but I hope it will help them see the ways people die on this journey: 27,000 dead in the last ten years! One of the greatest tragedies of our time.
TFV: Me Captain marks a return to your first feature films you directed, Land In Between and Guests, which addressed the theme of immigration toward Europe. What has changed in this anguishing story from the 1990s to today?
MATTEO GARRONE: From my own, narrative point of view, everything has changed. While my first films told the stories of immigrants in my country, Italy, Me Captain is a “reverse shot” that puts the camera on the other side. I was an intermediary, reconstructing along with the African kids what pushed them to make the journey. Remember the wave of immigration from Albania at the end of the 1980s? In that case Italian television played a big role in creating an image of Italy that was a dream. Albania is a small country and they had a burst of economic growth. The economic inequality lessened and today many Italians vacation in Albania. But Africa is made up of 52 countries so the problem is lots more complicated and it’s much harder to find a solution. We have to create channel for immigration so kids don’t have to risk their lives. And we have to fight the human traffickers. We are an aging country and they are young – in my opinion, there can be an exchange. When I was in Africa, I saw that not everybody wants to come here; many people are tied to their origins. And others want to come and work, but plan to return to their home country. The important thing is to construct legal channels for migration that don’t put lives at risk.
