Directed by Gabriele Del Grande, Antonio Augugliaro, and Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry
Screening 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday, November 8, 2107, Humanities 2, Room 259
In Milan, a group of migrants, including five refugees of the Syrian civil war and survivors of one of the 2013 migrant shipwrecks near Lampedusa, meet and plan their move to Sweden. With a Palestinian friend dressed up as a bride and more than a dozen Italian and Syrian friends as wedding guests, the group crosses Europe on a four-day journey of almost two thousand miles. Their emotionally charged odyssey not only brings out the stories, hopes, and dreams of the five refugees and their new friends, but also reveals a transnational and supportive Europe that opposes the restrictive laws that are meant to keep refugees out.
Io sono Li/Shun Li and the Poet (2013)
Directed by Antonio Segre
Screening 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday, February 21, 2018, Humanities 2, Room 259
Two outsiders become unlikely friends in this drama from filmmaker Andrea Segre. Shun Li (Zhao Tao) is a thirtysomething single mother from China who has come to Italy in the hope of providing a better life for herself and her son. However, Shun Li has partnered with an unscrupulous employment agency that shifts her from job to job and makes it difficult for her to pay her fees so she can make enough money to bring her son to Italy. She works as a barmaid in a shabby waterfront tavern in the fishing village of Chioggia; there, she meets Bepi (Rade Serbedzija), an exile from Eastern Europe who has a fondness for poetry and pens doggerel verse himself. Shun Li shares with Bepi stories of Qu Yuan, China's most celebrated poet, and the two strike up a friendship that has the potential to become something more. However, the Chioggia natives make it clear that they don't approve of Shun Li and Bepi's budding relationship, especially given their suspicions about her Chinese heritage.
Directed by Antonio Tibaldi
Screening 5:30-7:30pm, Wednesday, April 18, 2018, Humanities 2, Room 259
On a small, isolated island between Sicily and Africa, a film crew lands to shoot a large-scale feature film (Terraferma, directed by Emanuele Crialese). The filmmaker and his entourage settle on the island providing employment to the locals, but disrupting their bucolic daily rhythm. A large group of Africans are brought to the island from Sicily, to work as background on the film. The job requires that they get into the water and play the part of refugees arriving by rickety boats, something most of them have actually experienced. [s]comparse/[dis]appeared is a documentary about what happened behind the scenes while filming Terraferma (2011).
This series is co-sponored by the Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics.
