Italian director Matteo Garrone hopes that the way his film “Io Capitano” frames the journey taken by Senegalese teenagers to Europe as an adventure, albeit a harrowing one, will make it more compelling to audiences regardless of politics.
The film, which played over the weekend at the Marrakech International Film Festival, accompanies aspiring musicians Seydou and Moussa as they venture from Dakar through Niger and Libya and voyage across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy. The naive pair — unknowns whom Garrone found and cast in Senegal — witness mass death in the Sahara, scams and torture beyond their expectations.
The film has had box office success and rave reviews in Italy since its release in September, and it was screened for Pope Francis. “Io Capitano,” which is being promoted in the English-speaking world as “Me Captain,” comes as Europe, particularly Italy, reckons with an increasing number of migrants arriving on its southern shores — 151,000 so far in 2023. An estimated 1,453 are dead or missing, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency.
Italian Premier Georgia Meloni has called migration the biggest challenge of her first year in office. Her government has worked to strike agreements with neighboring Albania to house asylum-seekers with applications under review and a broad “migration assistance” accord with Tunisia intended to prevent smuggling and Mediterranean crossings.
Though Garrone acknowledges that those who choose to see the film in theaters may already be sympathetic to migrants who take great risks to reach the Europe they perceive as a promised land, he said in an interview with The Associated Press that showing the film in schools to teenagers who may not choose to see it otherwise had been particularly powerful.
“It’s very accessible for young people because it’s the journey of the hero and an odyssey,” he said. “The structure is not complicated. They come…
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