Synopsis
Terraferma (2011) is an Italian-French drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Emanuele Crialese sets his story on Lampedusa, a speck of Sicilian rock where families have pulled their living from the sea for generations.
That living is drying up. Young Filippo is caught between two elders: a grandfather who guards the boat and the old laws of the water, and an uncle who wants to rent the island out to tourists. Then the nets come up heavy with people instead of fish — African migrants adrift off the coast, for whom this scrap of land is the mainland, the safe shore. The family has to choose between the coast guard's rules and the fisherman's oldest one: you do not leave a drowning person to the sea.
Crialese works quietly, letting faces and water carry the weight rather than speeches. The film took the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, and its questions have only sharpened with time. One for viewers who like European social drama that refuses easy answers. Stream Terraferma online on iFILM.
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