Like a Man on the Earth

Giving voice to the Ethiopian refugees living in Rome, the film provides us with a direct insight into the brutal ways in which Libya, aided also by the Italian and European funds, is operating to control the immigration movements of people from Africa. Dag used to study Low in Addis Abeba in Ethiopia. Prompted by the strong political repression he had to face in Ethiopia, he decides to leave the country. In the winter of 2005 he embarks on a tough land journey, crossing the desert between Sudan and Libya. On his arrival in Libya, he is soon caught in a web of violence and criminal activities run by in the rackets controlling the routes to the Mediterranean Sea. He then goes from bed to worse, ending up in the hands of the Libyan police, responsible for a series of arrests and mass deportations. Surviving the ordeal he had to suffer in Libya, Dag eventually manages to cross the sea and reaches the Italian coastline. He then arrives in Rome, where he starts to attend an Italian course organised by the Asinitas Onlus, a first access centre point for African immigrants coordinated by Marco Carsetti and other volunteers. Here he attends an Italian language course and he is given the opportunity to learn basic film-making techniques. This experience inspires him to collect the memories of his fellow men who shared the same terrible experiences in Libya, in the attempt to break the silence and reveal what is happening in the country under the leader Gheddafi. Come un Uomo sulla Terra is a journey of pain and dignity, through which Dagmawi Yimer voices his memories of unthinkable human suffering to denounce what seems to be a desperate political situation. In this respect Italy and Europe share responsibilities for which they should be held accountable. The film is part of a project tilted The Archive of Refugees‚Äô Memories that has been developed from 2006 by the Asinitas Onlus, centre for the education and care of refugees (http://www.asinitas.net), in collaboration with ZaLab (http://www.zalab.org), a collective of film makers specialized in participatory video and social documentaries, and with the help of the organisation AAMOD : Archivio Audioviso Movimento Operaio e Democratico.

Andrea Segre As a director, he has studied and reported on migration to Europe and contradictions of the developed world now for several years. He wrote and directed Marghera Canal do Norte (2003), Che Cosa Manca (2006), La Mal’ombra (2007), and A Sud di Lampedusa (2007) on expelling immigrants from the Tenere Desert of which Like A Man On The Earth, to a certain extent, is a continuation. Dagmawi Yimer He graduated from a British school in Adis Ababa, attended some years of Law School, but for political reasons decided to emigrate. He reached Lampedusa by way of Lybia in July 2006, where he was granted humanitarian protection. Since 2007, he has collaborated with the Ainitas Italian school, as a volunteer and video-maker. He made one of the episodes of Il Deserto e il Maré and some short films as a class assignment. The Salina Doc Fest, a festival of narrative documentary in one of the seven islands of the Sicilian archipelago of Eolias, has now entered into partnership with Mostra Internacional de Cinema - The International Film Festival, in São Paulo, for a unique cinematographic interchange. Mostra will indicate films for Salina - in this case, the best Italian film of the second edition of the SalinaDocFest 2008, 22 through 28 September, awarded the Premio Brasile, and the film will, in addition, be shown within the program for the 32nd Mostra. The film chosen by a Brazilian jury (Renata de Almeida, Beth Formaggini, and Leon Cakoff) was Like a Man on the Earth, by Andrea Segre and Dagmawi Yimer. The prize from Mostra was justified because the film “focused on a social theme concerning immigration, solidarity, exile, political persecution, and resistance. And, especially, because this is a film that affects Italy in two ways - by the controversy of its policy against immigrants, forgetting that Italian culture was spread by immigration all over the world; and because the film deals with the direct consequences of the countries’ not too distant colonial policy in Africa, in this case, in Ethiopia.” Salina and São Paulo are starting on a cinematographic partnership that is a great stimulus to us. The history of São Paulo and its cultural background has passed through the voluntarism of Italian immigrants and the enchantment afforded by Italian cinema itself over the course of golden decades. Salina is the setting and inspiration to many chapters of this our story in common as film lovers. Films such as Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini), L’Aventura (Michelangelo Antonioni), and The Postman (Michael Radford) were all of them filmed there, among many others. Salina is a new stage, also, for Brazilian cinema that has so enchanted the world since it came of age with visions that are more pluralistic and diversified of Brazil’s giant cultural universe. With this partnership, São Paulo and Salina will exchange various experiences with the firm objective of benefiting mutual cinematographic knowledge. We hope that our example as a twosome, will be in use at many other film festivals. (Leon Cakoff)

e por tratar de conseqüências diretas de sua não muito distante política colonial na África e, neste caso, na Etiópia.” Salina e São Paulo iniciam aqui uma parceria cinematográfica que muito nos estimula. A história de São Paulo e de sua formação cultural passa pelo voluntarismo de imigrantes italianos e do encantamento oferecido pelo próprio cinema italiano ao longo de suas décadas de ouro. E Salina é cenário e inspiração de muitos capítulos dessa nossa história comum de cinéfilos, pois lá foram rodados filmes como Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini), L’Aventura (Michelangelo Antonioni), O Carteiro e o Poeta (Michael Radford), entre muitos outros. Salina passa a representar um novo palco também para o cinema brasileiro que tanto tem encantado o mundo desde que atingiu a sua maturidade com visões mais pluralistas e diversificadas do seu gigante universo cultural. Com esta parceria, São Paulo e Salina trocarão várias experiências que tem o firme propósito de beneficiar o mútuo conhecimento cinematográfico. Esperamos que o nosso exemplo geminado sirva para muitos outros festivais de cinema. (Leon Cakoff)

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA