One of our favorite directors, Andrea Segre’s been nominated for a Nastro D’Argento for his documentary Come il Peso dell’Acqua (like the weight of water).
Segre’s documentary was shown on Italian television on October 3, the anniversary of the “Strage di Lampedusa”, the massacre of Lampedusa. On that day in 2013 366 illegal immigrants died and around 20 are still missing after a shipwreck just a few miles from the port of the island of Lampadusa in Italy.
The film begins as a deep-sea diver swims slowly under water toward the outline of a wooden fishing boat.
Another of our favorites, actor Giuseppe Battiston is in a big empty room, asking himself why he doesn’t have the courage look, even though he’s known for years. Why are these corpses scaring him? He doesn’t know, but he knows that he wants to know.
Battiston’s voice accompanies the story of three women Gladys, Nasreen and Semhar, telling their difficult story of their journey to the Italian coast and their lives today. As the women speak, Battiston’s empty room starts filling up with objects and symbols of their stories, and in the end, he’s surrounded by the signs, the words, the maps, and the memories of his new conciousness.
We’ll have to let you know when this is available to us in the USA, but in the meantime, if you haven’t already, you’ll want to watch Segre’s beautiful feature-length film, Io Sono Li (Shun Li and the Poet), the story of a Chinese immigrant in the Veneto region and a fisherman that befriends her.
Congratulations Andrea. You’re already a winner with I Love Italian Movies. In Bocca al Lupo per i Nastri D’Argento!
I Love Italian Everything 