Cannes, presented at the Film Festival the project “Cutro, Calabria, Italy” a documentary film that will be made by Mimmo Calopresti

ROME – It was presented today at the Cannes Film Festival, in the spaces of theItalian Pavilion at the Majestic Hotel, the project for the making of the documentary “Cutro, Calabria, Italy” directed by Mimmo Calopresti, on the theme of the importance of documenting landings and hospitality. The meeting, moderated by Laura Delli Colli, president of the National Union of Film Journalists (SNGCI), was attended by: the extraordinary commissioner of the Calabria Film Commission Foundation Anton Giulio Grande and the Calabrian director Mimmo Calopresti. The filming of the documentary film, supported by Calabria Film Commission Foundation within the project Extraordinary Calabriaon the theme of hospitality in relation to the Cutro tragedy of 26 February 2023, will leave for Calabria at the beginning of June.

The themes of landings and hospitality. The events of Cutro last February – underlined Anton Giulio Grande – moved the world. With the work of Calopresti, an internationally renowned director, the themes of hospitality and landing places will be touched upon, the one that the people of Cutro and the institutions generously set in motion on 26 February last. Mimmo Calopresti intends to tell a vision of the facts, the positive actions of the population of Cutro and of the institutions, but at the same time mark a profound link with episodes of Italian cinema, those of Pasolini’s settings in the lands of Calabria. In particular in Cutro, where Pasolini filmed in 1964 the Gospel According to Matthew.

“How to Make Sense of a Tragedy”. The director Mimmo Calopresti concluded by saying: “Remember and never forget, only in this way can we make sense of a tragedy like the one that took place in Cutro. Remembering who is no longer there, telling the stories of who was on that boat that crumbled on the beach of Steccato di Cutro. Telling all those people who worked hard to lend a hand to the survivors, who mobilized for days to rebuild and recover the shreds of life that came from that sea that howled for days and nights. Finding meaning in what happened by doing the only thing I know how to do: tell”.

The facts of Cutro. On 26 February, a boat – an old wooden caique – was wrecked in Steccato di Cutro, in the province of Crotone, in Calabria. Inside the boat, which departed from Izmir, Turkey, on February 21, there were 180 people, mostly of Afghan, Pakistani, Syrian, Turkish, Somali and Iraqi origin. Children, women, men. The shipwreck took the lives of 91 people, including 25 kids, some even very pissy. The boat, 150 meters from the shore, crashed on the rocks due to the violence of the waves. On board were people who had fled their lands due to armed conflicts, persecution of a religious or gender nature, due to an unbearable poverty, due to climate change, or more generally due to the sacrosanct right to trivially aspire to a life better, rediscover dignity by working, studying and starting a family.