L‘Matteo Garrone had assumed that the question of the legitimacy of his film would be raised. «I’m Italian, I’m white, that’s not my world. There was a risk of giving a wrong representation» headline variety.
Not so, his film I captainthe story of a land and sea journey of two boys who from Senegal, going through many misadventures, land in Lampedusawhich is now in Competition, is a successful film which – and says Mamadou Kouassi Pli Adama, an Ivorian migrant who was an invaluable consultant on the film – «does justice to the stories of those who really did the journey told in the film» .
An open window on Europe
“There are many types of migration,” explains Matteo Garrone. «Migrations linked to wars, climate change, desperation. What I wanted to tell depends on the fact that 70% of the African population is made up of young people and that the globalization they experience there is no different from ours.
There is an open window on Europe which makes many young people who do not live in conditions of poverty or violence wish for a different future. As like us when we were their age we wanted to discover America. Only we could fly. They have to go through terrible trials and risk their lives.”
economic migrants, so. Precisely the genre most disliked by right-wing European governments. «When I tell stories I try to surprise myself and the viewer» explains Garrone. «This form of migration exists, it requires a large financial commitment, it is not for everyone. I was also interested in recounting this consequence of globalization. At the basis of everything there is an evident injustice: African kids see young Europeans of their age visit their countries, while the doors of Europe are closed to them”.
And speaking of Cannes («you mean the festival?»)who selected Rorhwacher, Moretti and Bellocchio in the Competition (and probably judged that three Italian films were enough), Garrone replies with his fond memories of Venice: «I came here for the first time when I was 18 with a tennis student of mine, at the time I was doing that by trade. We went to play on the courts of the Des Bains hotel, then she said to me: “Look at that guy, it’s Nanni Moretti”. I didn’t even see a film that time, but I returned about ten years later with a beat-up van in which I also slept: that time I saw the films and I began to enjoy the festival. I am happy to be in competition in Venice, I am convinced that he will lend a hand to the film».
I captain it comes out in theaters tomorrow 7 September. And it is certainly a film to see, not only for the truth that it carries in its belly thanks to the heavy documentation work that the Roman director did together with his collaborators (“I put myself at the service of those who had entrusted me with their story of the journey, as well as my gaze, my technical skills»), but why that innocence – which Garrone says he sought in writing together with Massimo Ceccherini with whom he had already worked for Pinocchio – the spectator hears it: «I am a bourgeois, Massimo comes from the people, he is as pure as the charactersI was looking for that simplicity, which is the same as for children, because what I wanted to do was a popular adventure story».
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