Stranger Flashback: Gianfranco Rosi's Golden Bear-Winning Documentary, Fire at Sea, Remains Heartbreaking and Harrowing

A decade ago, Gianfranco Rosi made Fire at Sea about the migrant crisis in Lampedusa. I wrote about it for The Stranger, but my review has gotten truncated. 

I was reminded of the film when I saw that Pope Leo XIV opted to pray for lost migrant lives in Lampedusa instead of traveling to his native United States during our 250th anniversary celebrations. Highly recommended--the film and the recognition of migrants' sacrifice in search of a better life.

FIRE AT SEA / Fuocoammare 

(Gianfranco Rosi, 2016, Italy, 114 minutes) 

Eritrean-Italian filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi shot his fifth documentary, Fire at Sea, with such care that it often feels more like a narrative feature than a non-fiction film (Rosi also served as cinematographer and sound man). 

Then again, there's something alien and strange about the rocky terrain of Lampedusa, an island 70 kilometers from the African coast that has admitted over 400,000 refugees. Like the Cuban exiles who have sunk beneath the waves while rafting towards the America Dream, 15,000 refugees have perished over 20 years while attempting to cross the Strait of Sicily.

Right: The Pope at Lampedusa

Other than a few opening inter-titles, Rosi eschews narration, focusing instead on ordinary Lampedusans engaging in their daily activities: an elderly woman doing chores around her idol-filled home, a DJ playing soothing songs for his hard-working audience, a doctor running a scan on a pregnant woman, and a little boy whittling a stick. While they go about their business, the soundtrack gives way to distress calls from refugees fleeing Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, and Syria. 

Rosi gradually narrows his gaze to 12-year-old Samuele, the whittling boy. He's a bright, energetic child with a lazy eye who slurps spaghetti, imitates bird calls, and constructs slingshots to torture innocent cacti. 

Rosi juxtaposes his mostly-daytime perambulations with the mostly-nighttime rigors of refugees entering the continent by boat. In one sequence, rescue workers give the shivering arrivals gold Mylar blankets. As they wait for processing, they glimmer and sparkle in the evening light. It's a lovely image followed in a later sequence by limp, dazed refugees suffering from severe dehydration. Worse yet: body bags wrapped in twine.

The message is clear: water gives life and it takes it away. It helps a 6,000-person fishing community to put food on their tables, it provides the possibility of a better future for migrants fleeing dictatorial rule, and it kills thousands of others who will never know the freedoms Samuele enjoys. 

As one Nigerian refugee who survived the journey puts it, "It is risky in life not to take a risk, because life is a risk." Rosi's remarkable film won the Golden Bear, the top prize, at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival.

Fire at Sea is available for free on Kanopy and for a nominal cost on Apple TV+ and Prime. Images from The Playlist (the top image), Film Inquiry (migrants arriving by overcrowded boat), and The Vatican (the Pope).