Director: Edoardo De Angelis Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino, Massimiliano Rossi, Johan Heldenbergh, Silvia D’Amico Released: Out now
In the summer of 2018, Admiral Giovanni Pettorino spoke at the 153rd anniversary of the Italian Coast Guard. He asserted the Coast Guard’s moral obligation to rescue migrant vessels in difficulty, to rapturous applause from his colleagues. Pettorino said: “We are sailors, Italian sailors with 2,000 years of civilisation behind us and that is what we do.” These words echoed that of Captain Salvatore Todaro of the Comandante Cappellini, who had sunk Kabalo, a Belgian merchant vessel, in 1940. Instead of leaving 26 Belgians to drown, Todaro opted to pull them out of the water and sail to the nearest neutral harbour.
Hearing of Pettorino’s speech, Italian writer and director Edoardo De Angelis dove…