FilmLampedusa

A man and a woman. Zakaria, in his late 20s, fled Somalia, a land buffeted by Civil War, and now he’s a journalist living in Rome. Recently, 55-year-old Giulia was struggling with a personal crisis, and now she returns, carrying a life-threatening illness inside her body. The Mediterranean island of Lampedusa is where the two meet. The past and future, personal experiences, memories, the political situations in Africa and Europe. No topic is taboo for the director, and none is overlooked. The characters deliver soliloquies that allow the viewer a glimpse into the labyrinth of their internal worlds. Light, dark, day, and night, photogenic shots of the sea and island landscapes, everything associatively merging into the precise black-and-white visual component of a film that embraces both documentary and drama. The universality and timelessness of expressed thoughts blur the distinction between genders and peoples. Who are we and where are we headed? The uncompromising director brings up questions about the meaning of our existence, and, like his earlier films, his latest also points to the unclassifiable originality of his work.