En Route

SYNOPSIS

On the outskirts of a small town a few kilometres away from the sea, a few voices emerge over the song of cicadas, immersed in a desolate, sunburned countryside. Fragments of lives, hopes, journeys, reflections that outline the bodies and faces of young men, little more than teenagers. In an almost suspended time, past and future intertwine. The gaze turns towards the landscape dispersed with scenes of everyday life, and from there to the horizon, waiting to resume the journey.

What does it feel like to trek overland across Africa, risk the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean and then find oneself stuck in limbo in the Sardinian countryside? This is the dilemma En Route explores with a groups of young African men who find life in Europe rather different from what they’d expected.
Forced to adjust to a new life somewhere that feels more like back home than the bright lights big city life that they had dreamed of. Focusing on the everyday life, the travel stories, the desires and aspirations of young migrants, this immersive documentary sensitively reveals another side of the migration dilemma.

The documentary En Route was produced within the research project “Global Rural – Sardinia”, coordinated by Dr. Francesca Fois (Postdoctoral Research Associate (GLOBAL–RURAL)/ Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University) and is part of the broader research project “Global Rural –The Global Countryside: Rural Change and Development in Globalization” funded by ERC (European Research Council) and coordinated by Professor Micheal Wood (Aberystwyth University, UK) to study the impact of globalization on rural areas in different parts of the world.

CREDITS
Direction: Gaetano Crivaro, Margherita Pisano
Camera: Gaetano Crivaro
Sound and sound mix: Margherita Pisano
Sound Mix supervisor: Jonhatan Parker
Editing: Gaetano Crivaro, Margherita Pisano
Translations: Caterina Gueli, Bourama Diagne, Francesca Fois
Produced by: Francesca Fois, L’Ambulante, Ruga Film
With the contribution of: , Global Rural Project, Aberystwyth University, ERC – European Research Council
Distributed by: BoFilm
Poster: Giuseppe Scalas and FLIRST

FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
– MAV. Materiali di Antropologia Visiva, Roma, Novembre 2018
– WOW. Wales One World Film Festival, Aberystwyth, UK, Marzo 2019
– 10° Cinemigrante, Panorama, Dialogo Europa/Africa, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Settembre 2019
– 44° Laceno d’oro, Concorso Documentari, Avellino, December 2019
– 30° FESCAAL/Festival del Cinema Africano, Asia e America Latina, CONCORSO EXTR’A, Milan, March 2021

SCREENINGS / CONFERENCES
– RGS _ IBS Annual International Conference 2018 – Cardiff, Wales, UK; Agosto 2018
– Geographical landscapes / changing landscapes of geography. International Symposium on the Global Countryside / Gregynog Hall, Newtown, Wales, UK / Novembre 2018
– Global Countryside / Young Migrant in rural Sardinya / Aberystwyth, Wales, UK, Gennaio 2019