After two competition wins in Venice, filmmaker Matteo Garrone and the crew behind Io Capitano (Me Captain) visited the Vatican, where they were granted an audience with Pope Francis.
During the visit, Garrone and his cast held an intimate screening of their film for the Pontiff, who also posed for pictures with the Me Captain crew.
Me Captain is the first film Garrone — a two-time Cannes jury prize winner with Gomorrah and Reality — screened in competition at Venice. The film tells the story of the adventurous journey of Seydou and Moussa, two young men who leave Dakar to make their way to Europe. Synopsis reads: Me Captain is a contemporary Odyssey through the dangers of the desert, the horrors of the detention centers in Libya, and the perils of the sea.
Vatican Media via (Vatican Pool/Getty Images).
Garrone picked up the award for best director at Venice while lead Seydou Sarr won best young actor. The film was released in Italian cinemas on September 7 and comes amid fierce debate in Italy over government policy surrounding refugees and illegal immigration.
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, nearly 126,000 people reached Italy by sea this year. The figure is almost double what was recorded in the same period of 2022. Tunisia has become the launchpad to Italy for migrants this year, replacing Libya, where widespread abuse of migrants has been reported. The port city of Sfax is the central jumping-off point. Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, is the first port of call for people making the risky boat journey across the Mediterranean. On Wednesday, Italian authorities reported that 1,850 people landed on the island. A five-month-old boy drowned during a rescue operation the same day.
Throughout his tenure, Pope Francis has often made public interventions about the treatment of migrants and has urged compassion toward people fleeing to Europe.
“Migrants are to be welcomed, accompanied, promoted, and integrated,” he said last year during a speech in the Italian city of Matera. “Let us renew our commitment to building the future in accordance with God’s plan: a future in which migrants and refugees may live in peace and with dignity.”
In his review out of Venice, Deadline’s Damon Wise described the Me Captain as a “gritty, heartbreaking study of migrant dreams.”
“Despite its technical elegance — and the film is near flawless in that respect — the biggest achievement in Garrone’s film is its casting. Using non-professionals found in an open call, it is authentic at every step of its audacious journey,” the review read.
Check out video footage from Garrone and his team’s visit to the Vatican above.
