“Fire at Sea, a harrowing documentary about Europe’s refugee crisis, has clinched the Golden Bear top prize from a jury led by Meryl Streep at the Berlin film festival.
The movie by Italian director Gianfranco Rosi offers an unflinching look at life on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, where thousands of asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East have arrived trying to reach the European Union over the last two decades. Thousands more have perished on the dangerous journey in rickety, overcrowded boats.
The Eritrean-born Rosi, who spent several months on Italy’s Lampedusa making the film, dedicated the prize to its residents “who open their hearts to other peoples”.
“I hope to bring awareness,” he said as he accepted the trophy from Streep. “It is not acceptable that people die crossing the sea trying to escape from tragedies.”
[From Wikipedia] The film was shot on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa during the European migrant crisis, and sets the migrants’ dangerous Mediterranean crossing against a background of the ordinary life of the islanders.[5][6] The main characters are a twelve-year-old boy from a local fishing family and a doctor who treats the migrants on their arrival.[6][7] In his acceptance speech for the Golden Bear award, Rosi stated that his intention was to heighten awareness of the migrant situation, saying, “It’s not acceptable that people die crossing the sea to escape from tragedies.”[5]