Film Screening: Other Europe

Il Cineforum Italiano presents:

Altra Europa (Other Europe, 2011)

Screening followed by Q&A withDirector Rossella Schillaci

Sponsored by the Department of French and Italian and the Center for European Studies

SYNOPSIS

What happens to African migrants once granted political refugee status? Which challenges they will need to face and what are their prospects for a decent livelihood in Italy?

In Turin, a northern Italian industrial city, an abandoned clinic has been squatted by more than 200 refugees since December 2008. All of whom are legal. Set between a cinema and a street market in a working-class neighborhood, this 5-story building is now inhabited by Somali and Sudanese refugees, forming a small African island in the heart of a European city, yet isolated from the rest of the world. There is running water in one room per floor for 80 persons on each floor; there is electricity but no heating. Khaled, Shukri and Ali, as all the other migrants, have been travelling through the hell in order to arrive in Italy. They crossed the border and are determined to have a normal life. Their hopes crash with a life condition “suspended”. Their expectations do deal with the limitations of a reality that welcomes them in a contradictory manner.

The film follows their stories in a years, showing life in the clinic and in the city, including the inevitable internal problems (due to the scarcity of food and water), the commitment of voluntary associations in providing a minimum support, the protests of citizenship and the initiatives of the City and Prefecture. The cold winter, unbearably sultry August, until the evacuation of the former clinic by the city authorities and the transfer of refugees in a barracks refitted for the occasion. Three emblematic characters guide us in a story that reveals, with intimate look, a collective history, an emblematic tale of all European countries today and about their immigration policies and the changes the social fabric of European cities is undergoing.

ROSSELLA SCHILLACI gained a MA in visual anthropology and direction of documentaries at the University of Manchester (UK). She participated to the EU-India Documentary Initiative and the Berlinale Talent Campus. Her documentaries have been awarded in many international film festivals, such as the Torino Film Festival, Jean Rouch International Film Festival, and Rai Film Festival. She produced and directed several documentaries broadcasted by RAISAT, Sky and Al Jazeera.