Terraferma is an Italian foreign language film set in the tourist season in Sicily, Italy.
The film follows the story of a family renting their house out to tourists when a mass of refugees come to the shores of the island, risking their lives to escape massive conflicts in Africa.
Synopsis
Terraferma follows the story of a small Sicilian family living on the island of Linosa (one of two islands off of the southern coast of Sicily).
The island almost exclusively relies on tourists to bring in money and boost their economy. As such, tourist seasons see thousands of North American and European visitors flock to the island for vacation.
Terraferma follows the family (a single mother and her son Filippo) as they rent out their house to a few holiday-goers as cruise ships dock on the island.
During the days, Filippo helps his Uncle and Grandfather with their fishing and boat repairing business.
However one day out in the Mediterranean waters, Filippo and his Grandfather see hundreds of African immigrants on sinking rafts swimming towards their ship. The two argue about what they should do and end up turning their backs on the drowning people.
When Filippo returns home he finds his mother has taken in another guest, a young African mother with a sick baby.
The remainder of the film follows Filippo and his mother as they attempt to take care of their new guest. And as Filippo deals with an internal debate on whether to help the growing number of people drowning at sea.
Should he abide by his Grandfather's beliefs and do nothing or help those in need like his mother?
Important Themes
Terraferma is a film which discusses a serious and ongoing issue with regards to ethical implications of European migration.
The past decade has seen a massive increase in illegal immigration attempts across the Mediterranean with a staggering amount of deaths at sea. Such high numbers are largely due to the thousands of desperate migrants who are created by ruthless, controlling and power-hungry African dictators.
A vast majority of migrant crossings are done from the North African coast with the most sought after destinations being Lampedusa, Greece, France, Israel and the Italian mainland.
Many of these people are escaping inhumane conditions where poverty, drought, famine, war, slavery, and human-trafficking are prevalent. With increasing restrictions on EU refugee processes being implemented, people have become more desperate to escape. Pushing many in desperate conditions to pay smugglers to get them across the Mediterranean to Europe.
However, many of these crossings result in large masses of migrants being abandoned at sea.
As touched on earlier, a huge reason as to why numbers of attempts and deaths are increasing are because of the tightening of refugee status and immigration regulations.
EU countries have started to make the process an unforgiving one, where if you do not meet their exceptionally high standards you will not be allowed to try a second time to immigrate into Europe.
And if attempted again you will be sent the first place you tried to claim refugee status (for the overwhelming majority this is Greece) or to another African country (even if you are not from said country). Thereby creating a lot of stateless and even more desperate people.
As a whole Terraferma does a good job on focusing on the ethical implications of said migration calamity.
It gives the viewer an important visualization of the ongoing issue. Showing how inhumane the systems in charge create even more conflicts for migrants. Resulting in higher rates of exploitation and fatalities.
Moreover, the narrative of Terraferma is even more current at the time of writing.
The last half of 2017 saw the uncovering of slave auctioning and trading in Libya, famine in Somalia, ongoing tensions in Nigeria between racial groups and the news of over 40,000 Africans being deported from Israel in the near future.
Conclusion
Altogether I found Terraferma to be a powerful film.
It tells a story riddled with emotion, confusion, fear and clashes between morals and ethics.
It wonderfully juxtaposes the difference between the two groups of "boat people" in the Mediterranean - that being the cruise ship tourists and the African migrants. Which in doing so allows us to see how our actions or lack of action have on real people caught in conflict.
I highly recommend Terraferma to anyone interested in foreign film. The narrative is superb and it tells a very dramatic tale of empathy and responsibility.
