OTHER EUROPE
a documentary by ROSSELLA SCHILLACI (HDCAM 75' - 2011)
camera ROSSELLA SCHILLACI, ROBERTO GRECO - sound SONIA PORTOGHESE - editing DARIO NEPOTE - music composer DANIELE DE LUCA - sound mix FABIO COGGIOLA - assistant director FULVIO MONTANO - assistant production GIULIO PEDRETTI - production AZUL in collaboration with LARANJA AZUL (Catarina Mourão - Portugal), CLAC and the support of PIEMONTE DOC FILM FUND, SICILIA FILM COMMISSION - author and director ROSSELLA SCHILLACI
What happens to African migrants once granted political refugee status? Which challenges they will need to face and what are their prospects for a decent livelihood in Italy?
In Turin, a northern Italian industrial city, an abandoned clinic has been squatted by more than 200 refugees since December 2008. All of whom are legal.
Set between a cinema and a street market in a working-class neighborhood, this 5-story building is now inhabited by Somali and Sudanese refugees, forming a small African island in the heart of a European city, yet isolated from the rest of the world. There is running water in one room per floor for 80 persons on each floor; there is electricity but no heating.
Khaled, Shukri and Ali, as all the other migrants, have been travelling through the hell in order to arrive in Italy. They crossed the border and are determined to have a normal life. Their hopes crash with a life condition “suspended”. Their expectations do deal with the limitations of a reality that welcomes them in a contradictory manner.
The film follows their stories in a years, showing life in the clinic and in the city, including the inevitable internal problems (due to the scarcity of food and water), the commitment of voluntary associations in providing a minimum support, the protests of citizenship and the initiatives of the City and Prefecture. The cold winter, unbearably sultry August, until the evacuation of the former clinic by the city authorities and the transfer of refugees in a barracks refitted for the occasion.
Three emblematic characters guide us in a story that reveals, with intimate look, a collective history, an emblematic tale of all European countries today and about their immigration policies and the changes the social fabric of European cities is undergoing.
AWARDS
8° Aljazeera Int Doc Film Fest, Doha (Qatar) 2012 – Public liberties & human rights award
12° Piemonte Movie - PANORAMICA DOC, Torino (Italy) 2012 – best documentary prize
This Human World International Film Festival, Wien 2011 – jury prize
12th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, London 2011 - RAI film prize
5th Salina Doc Fest sezione ITALIA.DOC, Salina (Italy) 2011 – best documentary prize
TELEVISION DISTRIBUTION
BABEL TV - SKY CHANNEL 141 (Italy) 29/04/2012
FESTIVALS
11° Göttingen Int Ethnographic Film Festival, Göttingen (Germany) 2012 – selection
Trento Film Festival, Trento (Italy) 2012 – selection
ETNO Film Festival, Rovinj (Croatia) 2012 – selection
8 1/2 Festa do Cinema Italiano, Lisbona (Portugal) 2012 – selection
Tri Continental Film Festival, Johannesburg (South Africa) 2011 – selection
Addis International Film Festival, Addis Abeba (Etiopia) 2011 – selection
Docudays UA, Kiev (Ukraine) 2011 – selection
DOCUMENT - International Human Rights doc fest, Glasgow (Scotland) 2011 – selection
Days of ethnographic cinema, Mosca (Russia) 2011 – selection
International NAFA Festival, Capodistria (Slovenia) 2011 – selection
Cinestudio Catania (Italy) 2011 – special screening
Cineforum Bolzano - Borderlands (Italy) 2012 – special screening