VATICAN CITY – How did it go?
“It was emotional, very emotional. The Pope looked at the images, the story of the injustices, of the atrocities of the journey. Migrants are truly contemporary heroes, as he himself defined them, and this is a film that gives visual form to that part of this odyssey of the present that is unknown, and which Francesco himself has spoken about many times. He told us that his parents were also migrants… ».
Matteo Garrone talks about it almost with modesty: on Thursday in the Vatican a special screening of “I Captain” was organized and before that, in Santa Marta, he was received by the Pope together with the protagonists of his film, Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall . «In the end the Pope looked at me and said: “These are very intense images”. For us it was a wonderful meeting, and we are grateful for it.”
Francesco decided to make his first trip to Lampedusa in 2013, looking at the images of these days it seems like it was yesterday.
“Because it is not a sudden emergency, but a drama that has been repeating itself cyclically, for decades. Francis told us that this is perhaps the biggest problem of our time, you can see how close he feels to it.”
Bergoglio himself denounced the “globalization of indifference”. Yet “I Captain” is doing very well in theaters, it has managed to make inroads, how can he explain it?
“We are usually used to addressing this topic from our point of view as Westerners. This film instead tells the journey from their point of view, that of the migrants, so to speak subjectively. And Seydou’s interpretation is so human, I would say so spiritual, that it touches deep chords in the spectators. These days I’m around for the presentations of the film and I see a transversal audience, young, old, people who perhaps rarely go to the cinema, and in everyone I notice this empathy: they live and suffer with the character, they feel firsthand what it means suffering an injustice.”
De Sica comes to mind, the camera at eye level with the protagonist…
“You know, we all have parents, and neorealism is an inevitable reference for a director. I’m happy if De Sica comes to mind, like when for “Gomorrah” some talked about Rossellini. After all, there are masterpieces by De Sica, such as “Miracle in Milan”, which in my opinion express a sort of magical realism, the dimension of dreams. In the case of “I Captain”, Seydou’s dreams are linked to the desire to tell the inner journey, as well as the geographical one, the journey of the soul through the feelings of guilt and the traumas it finds itself facing».
In all of this, beyond the recurring political controversies, something pre-political seems to come into play, which has to do first and foremost with the sense of humanity. Is that so?
“Yes, I agree, which is why I have always avoided talking about politics. The film talks about injustice, about violation of basic human rights. We get used to thinking that migrants are numbers. What pushed us to make this film is to try to show that behind the statistics of the dead and survivors there are people, and each is a human being with parents, dreams, affections, desires. Precisely what Pope Francis tries to explain every time. He feels this injustice deeply.”
One sees the film and thinks: it should be shown in schools.
“I hope so. It is important that children can see this adventure starring their peers. Sometimes we are used to taking things for granted that are not. For example, travel. Of course, many are fleeing because of wars or climate change. But it’s not like someone leaves just out of desperation. It is inevitable, as happens to the protagonists of the film, that a young man feels the vital push that leads him to travel, get to know the world, give himself the opportunity for a better life. In Dakar, while we were shooting the film, I saw many young people living in dignified poverty, as post-war Italy could have been, a climate of vitality, of solidarity. And these kids don’t understand why their European peers can travel and perhaps go on holiday in African countries and they can’t, and instead have to face this journey of death to reach Europe. There is a profound injustice in this. I didn’t invent anything, I remained faithful to their stories.”
2023-09-15 16:41:34
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