Berlinale ’16: ‘Fire At Sea’ review

Fire At Sea review: A haunting and unflinching documentary focusing on a small island in the Mediterranean and the refugee crisis devastating it.

One of the more important films playing at this year’s Berlinale is the in-competition Fuocommare, or Fire At Sea, a co-production between France and Italy, and directed by Gianfranco Rosi.

The film follows a twelve-year-old boy on the island of Lampedusa, 120 miles off the coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean. The child, Samuele, fills his days playing in the rocks with his friends, hunting down birds with his slingshot and generally being a typical child bordering on becoming a teenager. However, Samuele’s world is unlike anyone elses at the same age, as his island, which measures just 20km in diameter, has been the destination of men, woman and children trying to make the crossing from nearby Africa, many, obviously not making it. Gianfranco Rosi’s camera captures everyday life for Samuele and the other inhabitants of the island, while at the same time fearlessly recording the harsh realities of the fate of these emigrants as they attempt to escape to a new life.

Rosi’s film is truly involving and captivating; a 100-minute affair that balances humour, specifically from its young central subject of Samuele, tragedy, and ultimately despair. Its superb cinematography, from Rosi himself, captures life on the island beautifully, but also doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of the current refugee crisis crippling small islands in the Mediterranean like this one. Rosa cleverly conveys ignorance, aiming the issue at the entire world rather than this tiny community, who are blissfully continuing about their everyday life as dozens of bodies are swept up on its shores just meters away.

Some scenes are harrowing, especially as we approach the film’s final moments, but Fire At Sea certainly achieves what it set out to do, and pummels home its subject’s harsh reality, and the fact that we all have a part to play with this crisis in coming up with a definite solution. Uncompromising, devastating and haunting.

Fire At Sea review by Paul Heath at the Berlin Film Festival, 2016.