Mediterranea
Description
Putting a personal face on the plethora of stories about African immigrants trying to make it to European shores, Mediterranea details the perilous journey of a young man named Ayiva from Burkina Faso to the southwestern Italian town of Rosarno. Robbed by bandits in Algeria and rescued by the Coast Guard off the shores of Italy, he is given three months to get a work contract in a country facing its own share of employment woes. In his debut feature, Jonas Carpignano favors a vérité style of storytelling, placing the viewer directly into Ayiva’s environment and circumstance whether it be his makeshift home in a shantytown, the orange grove where he works for half wages trying to please the boss, or a house party where he comes across other refugees choosing less reputable ways to make money. Based partly on the real-life experiences of Koudous Seihon, who brings a heartfelt gravity to the lead role, the film offers a profoundly humanist reality to counteract the political rhetoric that tends to disregard people such as Ayiva and the millions of others trying to make better lives for themselves.
Mediterranea is a two-time SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant recipient. Bay Area-based SFFS Board member Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) is one of the film’s producers.
When race riots erupted in Rosarno, Italy, in 2010, Jonas Carpignano traveled there to better understand the circumstances behind the violence. After meeting his lead actor Koudous Seihon, he began developing the script for Mediterranea with assistance from Sundance’s Screenwriters Lab and the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program. Carpignano is an Italian-American filmmaker based in Rome and Brooklyn whose award-winning short films have played internationally.
Film Details
Language French, Italian, English, Arabic, Bissa
Year 2015
Runtime 107
Country Italy/France/USA/Germany/Qatar
Director Jonas Carpignano
Producer Jason Michael Berman, Chris Columbus, Jon, Coplon, Christoph Daniel, Andrew Kortschak, John Lesher, Ryan Lough, Justin Nappi, Alain Peyrollaz, Gwyn Sannia, Marc Schmidheiny, Victor Shapiro, Raphael Swann, Ryan Zacarias
Writer Jonas Carpignano
Editor Nico Leunen, Affonso Gonçalves, Sanabel Cherqaoui
Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield
Music Benh Zeitlin, Dan Romer
Cast Koudous Seihon, Alassane Sy, Adam Gnegne
Print Source IFC/Sundance Selects