Cinemundus 2019 // Fire at Sea

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

—Lao-Tzu

Every year thousands of students from around the world travel to study at schools in other countries looking for new experiences — aiming to improve their skills and knowledge, challenging themselves as they face different cultures and education systems, dealing everyday with diverse ways of living. Presenting their own identity, friendships and fond attachments begin and grow, and these youngsters show us how diversity enhances the human spirit as interrelationship transforms the world into something bigger and better. These students carry a restless gaze, insatiably peering at new experiences and creating a multitude of stories to share and make sense - actually, this very same gaze comes near to a definition of motion pictures. “Seeing is in itself a movement”, wrote a French artist. Cinema is an artistic and cultural phenomenon that engages as an agent of global transformation, and interestingly, it’s also a way for us to relate as individuals with different perspectives and focus — it allows us to know notable worlds, moving briefly to other places, hence being exposed to other realities, sometimes bursting, other times everlasting places: exquisite locations of imagination, memory, identity and emotion. In a sense each movie at these film sessions share these topics, offering a specific vision, never imposing and rather inviting the viewer to leap into it and choose his stand.

This is the fourth edition of CineMundus film sessions, dedicated to mobility students that are currently studying at Porto. This event is promoted by the Rectory of the University of Porto, the Erasmus+ International Office and the Fine Arts Faculty, featuring three films by three directors from diverse regions and nationalities.

It’s screened at the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Fine Arts (FBAUP), and Casa Comum Auditorium (U.Porto Rectory), on three Thursdays nights - 21H - in October and November.

Samuele is 12 years old and lives on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Like many boys of his age, he goes to school and spends his free time on the island playing with his slingshot. Around Samuele there’s sea and there are men, women and children trying to cross it from Africa in small boats without the slightest conditions. The island where Samuele lives is Lampedusa, a symbolic border of Europe, which thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants seek to reach freedom and hope. The inhabitants of Lampedusa everyday witness one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies of our times, even though these two worlds rarely meet.

Samuele tem 12 anos e vive numa ilha do mar Mediterrâneo. Como muitos rapazes da sua idade, vai à escola e passa o tempo livre pela ilha a brincar com a sua fisga. À volta de Samuele existe mar e existem homens, mulheres e crianças que tentam atravessá-lo a partir de África em pequenos barcos sem condições mínimas. A ilha onde Samuele vive é Lampedusa, uma fronteira simbólica da Europa, à qual tentam chegar milhares de migrantes de África e do Médio Oriente em busca de liberdade e esperança. Os habitantes de Lampedusa testemunham diariamente uma das maiores tragédias humanitárias dos nossos tempos, apesar de estes dois mundos praticamente não se encontrarem.

Director: Gianfranco Rosi
Script: Gianfranco Rosi
Cinematography: Gianfranco Rosi
Film Editing: Jacopo Quadri
Music: Stefano Grosso
Production: Gianfranco Rosi, Paolo Del Brocco, Donatella Palermo
Italy, 2016, Documentary, 108´, M/12
Spoken language: Italian
Subtitles: English
Trailer: