ITALY / FRANCE / USA / GERMANY / QATAR
2015 / WORLD PREMIERE
1H47 – IN FRENCH / ITALIAN / ENGLISH / ARABIC / BISSA
Synopsis
Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in Italy, but when tensions with the local community rise, things become increasingly dangerous. Determined to make his new situation work he attempts to weather the storm, but it has its costs.
Excerpt 1 - Excerpt 2
DIRECTOR: Jonas Carpignano
PRODUCTION: Jon Coplon - Gwyn Sannia - Jason Michael Berman - Chris Columbus - Christoph Daniel - Andrew Kortschak - John Lesher - Ryan Lough - Justin Nappi - Alain Peyrollaz - Marc Schmidheiny - Victor Shapiro - Ryan Zacarias
SCREENPLAY: Jonas Carpignano
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Wyatt Garfield
EDITING: Nico Leunen - Affonso Gonçalves - Sanabel Cherqaoui
SOUND: Damien Tronchot
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Marco Ascanio Viarigi
MUSIC: Benh Zeitlin - Dan Romer
CAST:
Koudous Seihon
Alassane Sy
PRODUCTION
MEDITERRANEA FILM
Jonas Carpignano
Tel. +33 (0)6 72 07 81 36
jonasash@gmail.com
Jon Coplon
Tel. +33 (0)6 48 86 66 67
jcoplon@gmail.com
DISTRIBUTION
HAUT ET COURT DISTRIBUTION
Laure Caillol
Tel. +33 (0)155 31 27 27
laure.caillol@hautetcourt.com
SALES
NDM Fiorella Moretti
Tel. +33 (0)6 26 10 07 65
fm@mantarraya.com
FRENCH PRESS
MOONFLEET
Matthieu Rey
matthieu-rey@moonfleet.fr
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
INTERNATIONAL RESCUE
Manlin Sterner
manlin@manlin.se
US PRESS
Ryan Werner
Tel. +1 917 254 7653
rtwerner@me.com
CONTACT CANNES
NDM Fiorella Moretti
Riviera F10
Tel. +33 (0)6 26 10 07 65
fm@mantarraya.com
Where does the urge to make this film come from?
My mother is African-American and my father is Italian. Therefore, when the first Italian racial riots took place in 2010 in Rosarno, I rushed to Calabria to get a better grasp of the situation. At first, I wanted to make a short film about the revolt, but eventually, after meeting Koudous Seihon (Ayiva), I knew I would make a feature film dealing with the different aspects of the incident.
How would you describe the two main characters?
Ayiva and Abas are the two faces of the same person, like the two sides of the same coin. Ayiva is the more mature and responsible one, but also the more troubled. Abas is the livelier of the two, capable of benefiting from the joys of the moment without thinking of further consequences. The two friends often fight, but neither of them can make it without the other. They represent two complementary paths in facing life in a foreign country.
Your film focuses on how Italy welcomes migrants.
It is what interested me the most. We think we know already about their journeys: the crossing and then the hundreds of Africans reaching our shores by boat each year, but we ignore what comes afterwards. For me, this was the starting point. I also wanted to pin down the ambiguity of compassion and how it sometimes turns into a patronizing attitude, which may well come from a lack of knowledge. The immigrant is not just an outsider, the feared or celebrated stranger, depending on one’s ideological beliefs, but he is a component of growing importance in our globalized world. That is why the title, Mediterranea, is a plural, standing for this meeting ground, this space of conflicts, and most of all, this place that cannot be defined according to its borders.
Interview by Annick Peigné-Giuly
