Jabal - la montagna

Peppe retraces the memories that connect him to the last strip of land where Europe ends, to the house overlooking the cliffs where he grew up, and to the Sicily of his birth. The fainted image of his family and the last moments of his carefree childhood, resurface in his mind. The friends he had to abandon too soon; his grandfather who tirelessly recounted stories of the sea; an unfulfilled father; and a mother descending into the spiral of depression. During Peppe’s journey coming home, years unravel over the miles that he put between himself and home. Years of absence echo in the dull sound of the wind breaking against the rocks. Peppe goes back home to retrieve, from the seabed, the breath of life (sciatu meo) that sustains his vitality, as well as his memory of an eternal love.

Turi grew up while his father was in prison. Now that he has turned eighteen, he feels that he has reached adulthood. He tries to convince his girlfriend Rosa to drop out of school and live with him. Struggling against his insistence, she refuses with all her heart and finds the strength to push him away. Turi interprets this as a demonstration that he was born under a bad star: doomed to live a life without love. He becomes aggressive and unscrupulous, trying to take by force that which he thinks should be his by right. His steps follow those of his father, until he ends up in prison. As if in a game of mirrors, father and son face the shadows of their own past.

Every year, in Italy, thousands of foreign citizens are kept inside the identification and expulsion centers because they lack a regular residency permit. They may be kept there up to a year and a half without being guilty of a crime and without being convicted by a judge. Administrative detention in Europe is the extreme consequence of the operation of the borders inside the Schengen area. For the very first time in Italy, the Home office has authorized the access of a film crew to the Identification and Expulsion Centers. Finally, the wall of silence surrounding these centers and the people kept inside, has opened up, for our short visit, as an exception. But it was soon after closed in its daily indifference.

Libya, west coast. Binta and Abdul are hostages of a people smuggler who prevents them from continuing their journey to Europe. They have been sold, passed from hand to hand and reduced to identity-less bodies. In a revenge of fate, their executioners are engulfed by a moonless night. Binta and Abdul remain locked in their cell, with the sea as only witness of the night that has just passed.