Fire at Sea

This Oscar-nominated doc snatched the prestigious top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016 and has gone on to garner other festival laurels and top spots on year-end lists from Sight and Sound to Time Out. Observing life on and around a tiny Italian island, Fire at Sea is a keen and enthralling look at the realities of the front lines of the European migrant crisis. The island of Lampedusa is home to a modest fishing community of about 6,000—but in recent years, it has become a crucial stopping point for hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa.

In Italian, with English subtitles.

Critical praise:

• The Hollywood Reporter - "Subtle but powerful."
• The New York Times - "A hard, empathetic look at reality, which contains wonders as well as horrors."
• The Guardian - 4/5, "Packs a powerful punch."
• IndieWire - "Strikingly beautiful."