North of Lampedusa

October 3, 2013 is commonly remembered as the day of the Lampedusa massacre in which 368 people died. 151 survivors were saved, 47 of whom were saved by Vito Fiorino who began to hoist on board as many possible people, to the point of risking the boat capsizing: he continues with the rescue, says the lawyer Alessandra Ballerini, "until he dislocates his shoulder". He rescues people from certain death. He has always remained in contact with those 47 people, all Eritrean citizens, over these 10 years. A documentary made by Alex Rocca and Davide Demichelis traces this network of relationships and meetings between Vito and his Eritrean friends in the various European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Holland) to which they moved and which still call him dad today.

Vito explains that that evening he was «in the Tabaccara bay, we were woken up by some noises: they were screams that came up from the water, they seemed like seagulls to me, but instead they were men. We got closer and saw the bodies in the sea, people holding onto water bottles or already dead people, there was an amphitheater of people screaming, we were overcome by fear, it was impossible to be able to save them all." But I didn't leave perhaps because, continues Vito, «I was a castaway too, I had repressed it, then that experience came back to me during the tragedy of October 3rd. I was 12 years old and a friend and I went out on the dinghy, there was wind from the shore, we couldn't get back to shore. The uncle had said: be careful, we were desperate, after an hour a boat arrived to help us, in the end we wanted to give something, but they didn't want anything, like us today."

The documentary film North of Lampedusa tells the current stories of people: «We, explains Davide Demichelis, took a journey like in the television series Radici in search of the fruits of that rescue, we could say the roots of good. And it is important to focus on the space, on the way of describing people starting from words because the lawyer Ballerini explains «words do things. When we say landings we use military language because the armies are landing, the people are landing [...]. Asylum means the place without capture" and if you don't have a back to turn towards, go forward even if there is the sea in front of you because you know that water is safer than land.


Fabrizio Floris
NP February 2024