Migrants’ grueling three years trying to reach Italy inspired the Oscar-nominated film ‘Io Capitano’

Castel Volturno, Italy | Mamadou Quassi’s epic journey across the African desert, through illegal prisons and across the Mediterranean on a smuggler ship inspired Italian director Matteo Garrone’s Oscar-nominated film Io Capitano. An immigrant from Ivory Coast, some of the episodes he witnessed during his three-year journey were too intense to be considered as a finalist.

Garrone’s film, nominated in the International Feature Film category, follows the journey of two teenage boys who follow the migration route from Senegal across the Niger desert to Libya, where they board a rusted smuggler ship full of migrants. I’m drawing.

The smugglers force one of the teenagers to “captain” the boat, since minors cannot be imprisoned in Italy.

In the movie, no one dies on the dangerous passage. But on Quassi’s boat, “people died. And I was lucky to survive.”

Quassi, who completed his journey in 2008 and advised Garrone on the film, expressed the film’s powerful messages, including scenes of prisoners being burned and beaten, and his experiences as a slave laborer who worked as a mason. provided horrific details of the torture that contributed to the. Desert villa of a wealthy Libyan man.

More graphic episodes, such as the repeated rapes of women by traffickers along the route, and scenes in which extorted migrants are forced back into the desert and abandoned after being unable to provide contact information for their families to traffickers, were cut. Ta.

“Mateo removed this film because he wanted it to reach a wide audience,” Quassi explained.

Garrone’s previous films include the 2008 organized crime drama Gomorrah and the 2019 fantasy Pinocchio, starring Roberto Benigni. The Italian director cast Senegalese high school students Seydou Sarr and Mustapha Fall as the teenage protagonists. Searle won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Emerging Actor at the Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered.

In the film, the boys come to Europe, inspired by TikTok videos and lured by their dreams of becoming singers. In fact, the actors knew little about the horrors of the immigration route until they began filming in their native Senegal.

“Mateo made this film to show people what’s really going on, the reality of what we (Africans) have to suffer to come to Europe,” said Searle.

Sir and Fall’s lives were turned upside down by the film’s sudden success, and since filming they have split their time between Garrone’s mother’s beach house near Rome and touring the city to promote Io Capitano. ing. They both nurture dreams of pursuing acting careers, and Searle hopes to become a soccer star.

Meanwhile, Quassi, 40, continues to work as a cultural intermediary in the city of Castel Volturno, near Naples, helping migrants obtain labor documents and medical care. He already has a sequel in mind. This is my life after arriving in Italy. There he was part of an army of exploited young Africans, working 10 hours a day picking tomatoes and oranges for just 10 euros a day.

His dream is that Io Capitano will influence immigration policy around the world by drawing public attention to untold horrors.

He points out that while no one knows how many people die in the desert, attention has been drawn to the thousands of people who die each year crossing the central Mediterranean. “And in these prisons, no one knows how many people are dying inside,” he said.

Quassi, two young actors, and the director are currently in the United States promoting Io Capitano’s Oscar campaign. At recent screenings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, audiences were moved by the film’s depiction of immigrant hardship, and many walked away determined that “something has to be done,” he said.

“We believe this film, ‘Io Capitano,’ should be one of the most powerful tools governments around the world use to change their immigration policies,” Quassi said.

In addition, Quassi was invited to an Italian school after the film screening to speak to students.

“I have to be a voice for the people, because if no one starts making people understand what we are facing before we come to Europe, people will think that we are on board. “You think you’re just getting into Europe. So that was important to me.” To explain how it started. ”

For him, getting his message across is more valuable than any award in the industry.

“For example, the rules of the Oscars are important for winning. But change is more important,” he said.

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.

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