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Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare)
Italian director Gianfranco Rosi won the coveted top prize, the Golden Bear, at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival for this harrowing documentary about the refugee crisis, which has engulfed Europe. The film travels to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, the final destination for dozens of boats from north Africa overloaded with migrants. Many of these ships do not reach Lampedusa, succumbing to the rough waters. Local coastguards repeatedly answer distress calls from the ships, some of which contains the bodies of migrants who have choked to death from diesel fumes. This tragedy unfolds through the eyes of Lampedusa doctor, Pietro Bartolo, who tends to the refugees that make it safely to the island, and a 12-year-old local boy called Samuele Pucillo, who will rely on the same treacherous sea for his livelihood when he becomes a fishermen like the other members of his family.
