CNN
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Matteo Garrone knew how his film would finish.
However the Italian director waited till the final moments of filming to disclose the ending to the actors enjoying the lead roles.
“Io Capitano” tells the “Odyssey”-like story of migrant teenagers making a harmful journey from Africa to Europe. It won best director on the Venice Worldwide Movie Competition final 12 months, and it’s amongst 5 movies vying for greatest worldwide function movie at this year’s Academy Awards. It additionally not too long ago opened in US theaters, incomes rave reviews from critics and a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film stars Senegalese actors Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall, enjoying the roles of cousins Seydou and Moussa, who share the actors’ first names however have very completely different backstories.
“From the outset, they didn’t know whether or not their characters would succeed of their journey or not,” Garrone has said.
For Sarr, whose efficiency garnered him the very best younger actor award on the Venice pageant, the method was notably difficult.
“Every part was performed on the spot. I’d are available in for the day, the producer would give me pages, the translator instructed me the dialogue…and I slipped into character immediately,” Sarr mentioned in a press launch concerning the movie. “It was purely instinctual.”
That, Garrone says, helped make their performances really feel extra actual. And it wasn’t the one factor he did to make sure the movie’s authenticity.
The movie’s title, which interprets into English as “Me Captain,” is a reference to migrants coerced into turning into captains of vessels crossing the ocean. It wasn’t an expertise Garrone had lived personally, however listening to historic accounts captured his creativeness — equivalent to the story of a 15-year-old from West Africa who managed to navigate a ship stuffed with 250 folks throughout the Mediterranean to security in Italy in 2014 regardless of having no maritime expertise.
To Garrone, the act was simply as heroic as a quest in an historical epic, however that’s not how he noticed the tales portrayed. He says the teenager who efficiently steered that boat, for instance, was jailed afterward for six months.
“Generally (it’s) simpler to place in jail folks that don’t have (a) voice,” Garrone instructed reporter Hari Sreenivasan on CNN’s Amanpour earlier this 12 months. “It’s injustice, and we hope that the film will present these injustices to all of the world and issues will change.”
Since he solely knew concerning the migrants’ expertise from the Italian perspective, Garrone knew he would wish to enlist the assistance of others to inform the story.
The vast majority of the movie’s dialogue is in Wolof, a language Garrone doesn’t communicate.
“That was the rationale I made a decision instantly that the one method to make the film was collectively,” Garrone instructed Amanpour, describing the workforce he assembled.
The director says he noticed himself as an middleman, connecting audiences with the migrants and their experiences. To try this, he interviewed migrants and researched their tales as he developed the movie’s script, and he additionally had migrants standing by as consultants throughout filming.
“All of the extras within the film have been actual survivors, actual migrants that already made that journey. So they might assist me to recreate the authenticity of this journey, the main points,” Garrone says. “And sure, we made this film all collectively.”
Getting it proper wasn’t simply necessary for the sake of constructing an correct movie, Garrone says. A staggering statistic he got here throughout in his analysis was by no means removed from his thoughts: Since 2014, officers estimate greater than 25,000 migrants have died making an attempt to cross the Mediterranean.
“We needed to be genuine for the respect of the folks that made this journey,” Garrone says, “for the respect of the folks that died on this journey.”
For Mamadou Kouassi, the exploits depicted within the movie aren’t simply plot twists in a film.
They’re echoes of his personal experiences.
Kouassi was a script marketing consultant on the movie, assembly a number of occasions with Garrone and his co-writers. He left Ivory Coast for Europe in 2006. And he says he witnessed folks deserted within the desert, was separated from his cousin and was later detained in Libya — all occasions depicted within the film.
“I began crying in the course of the movie,” Kouassi instructed CNN final 12 months a day after its premiere. “This film makes me re-experience my life 15 years in the past. It’s an emotion I had forgotten.”
Garrone says the film’s plot is a composite of a number of migrants’ tales. However Kouassi’s was notably useful.
“Mamadou’s story was most treasured to me, as a result of his account revealed elements that basically shocked me and that I had completely ignored,” the director instructed CNN final 12 months. “These are the very human, intimate particulars which are on the base of the selection to go away their nation.”
Kouassi instructed Amanpour it’s a selection many migrants preserve making, regardless of listening to of the hazards forward, as a result of they’re decided to make their desires come true.
“We determine to cross the desert at any price. That is the fact,” he mentioned.
It’s a actuality he hopes many extra folks will perceive due to Garrone’s consideration to element and his dedication to telling the story from the migrants’ viewpoint.
“Matteo didn’t depart something (out),” Kouassi instructed CNN final 12 months. “He defined — he uncovered — the fact and the reality.”
And like its lead actors, the movie’s audiences must wait till the tip to search out out what occurs.
CNN’s Thomas Web page contributed to this report.