The Scream

Director: Michelangelo Severgnini

Italy, 2021

85′

Synopsis

700 thousand migrant-slaves stranded for years in Libya, with no way forward, no way backward, except for a few thousand of them every year. This is the scenario told by the hundreds of people in Libya with whom Michelangelo has been able to get in touch through a method based on geolocation, since the summer of 2018. “The Scream” is the story of this adventure, spent between the vain attempt to make these voices protagonists in Europe and the desire to unravel, inch by inch, the mysteries of Libya. A shocking picture emerges: Europe supports and finances the illegitimate governments in Tripoli in exchange for Libyan oil stolen under the table, 40% every year. This massive looting is possible thanks to the impunity enjoyed by the militias on the ground, the same militias that, with the mirage of Europe, have deceitfully attracted so-called African ‘migrants’ to Libya and now, once converted into slaves, dispose of them as they please. The images taken from the mobile phones of the young people in Libya and their voice messages alternate with the author’s journey towards the border between Tunisia and Libya, in search of a liberation that is delaying its arrival, in the complicit silence of the world.

Director's bio

Michelangelo Severgnini, born in Crema, Italy in 1974, is a writer, director and a musician. He has lived in Milan, Rome, Naples, Istanbul and Berlin. He currently resides in Palermo. He has been making several independent documentaries since the early 2000s: “The return of the Aarch – the villages of Kabylia shake Algeria,” (’60, 2003), “…and the placid Tigris flows – snapshots from occupied Baghdad,” (’70, 2004), “Isti’mariyah – upwind between Naples and Baghdad” (’80, 2006) which receive several awards. In 2012 the documentary “The man with the megaphone,” (’60) shot in Naples, was presented at the Rome festival. He later made “The Rhythm of Gezi,” (’45, 2014), “Linea de fuga – the Podemos circle in Berlin” (’90, 2017) and “Reserve Slaves” (’35, 2018).

Credits

Camera: Waddah A-Fahed

Editor: Claudio D’Elia

Sound: Danilo Romancino

Music: Michelangelo Severgnini

Producer: Riccardo Biadene