As Italian director Garrone steps on to the Academy Awards red carpet on March 10 with Best International Feature Film nominee Io Capitano, the real-life skipper who part inspired the drama will be watching and rooting for the film from afar.
West African born Fofana Amara was just 15 years old when he successfully skippered a rickety boat carrying 250 people across the Mediterranean from the Libyan coast in July 2014, to arrive off the Sicilian port of Augusta.
Proudly declaring “Io, capitano” (“I’m the captain”) when the coast guard boarded the ship, the youngster was immediately slammed in jail on charges of human trafficking.
It was just one stage of Amara’s perilous journey from the Republic of Guinea to Italy, passing by Libya, which had begun when he was 14 years old.
Eventually released from jail after the people he saved testified in his favor, Amara completed a nautical course in the Sicilian port city of Catania and worked for a time as an assistant on a sailing program for the disabled and elderly.
Now 25, Amara lives in Belgium, having left Italy for love, where he works for a logistics firm and is raising his young daughter with his partner.
“It’s a huge honor for me. I never imagined that my story would arrive at the Oscars and come to be known around the world in this way,” Amara told Deadline. “The film shows that the world has a long way to go in terms of human rights.”
Still awaiting his papers, Amara cannot travel freely so has not been able to accompany Garrone on the film’s awards season tour to the U.S.
“It’s hard for me not to be present… it would be fantastic if the film won the Oscar but more importantly, I’m happy the film has travelled the world and told our story… that’s very important for all of us who are involved.” says Amara.
He reveals that none of his co-workers in Belgium were aware of what he had gone through as a teenager.
“No-one had a clue about my past. I don’t talk about my life much at work – when I’m at work, I work – but it started to come out as the film gathered interest. Thirty of my colleagues came to the Belgian premiere and now with the Oscar campaign and all the interviews I’ve done, they know everything,” he recounts.
“I think they were a bit shocked to discover that I had gone through such a traumatic experience… at work, I’m just a normal guy.”
Amara’s story was one part of the inspiration for Garrone’s feature about two teenage friends who risk their lives – enduring a deadly Sahara crossing, private militia-run prisons, torture and brutal modern slavery along the way – to get to Europe from their home country of Senegal.
The director also tapped into the experiences of Mamadou Kouassi, for the first part of movie capturing the journey across the Sahara and time in Libya. Both men are credited as script consultants on the film.
“Matteo fused both our stories. We all basically do the same journey… the only difference in my story is that I ended up skippering the boat, but the trip through the Sahara, the torture and forced work, we all went through that,” says Amara.
He suggests that Marrone cut out some of the more disturbing incidents they witnessed on their separate journeys such as women being raped and violence against young children.
Garrone first heard Amara’s story while visiting a refuge for young migrants in Sicily run by a friend.
‘It was eight years ago, before I did Dogman or Pinocchio,” recounts the director. “I was on holiday in Sicily, and I visited my friend who was running this centre in Catania. He showed me around.”
“I wasn’t thinking about making a film. He told me about this boy who had found himself in charge of a boat at 15-years-old and saved 250 people’s lives and then in a moment of pride and joy at what he had achieved declared himself the captain… which landed him in jail.”
“His story made me think of the tales of Robert Louis Stevenson or Jack London, those seas adventures of the late 1800s… it stayed with me for years,” Garrone continues, adding that initially he did not feel that it was his place as an Italian to tell the story on the big screen.
“I felt it made more sense for the story to be told by someone who came from that world. I didn’t want to be the privileged director who profits from the misery of others,” he explains.
But after completing Dogman and Pinocchio, Marrone felt compelled to make the film: “It was like the film chose me.”
The director chose not to reveal what happened to Amara once he made it to dry land in Italy, focusing instead on his perilous journey up until his arrival on Italian soil.
“The film is born about of desire to show a part of the journey that we don’t know, that is never seen. We’re used to seeing images of these boats arriving laden with people from our point of view, with the ritual count of the living and dead. We forget that behind the numbers there are people.”
For his part, Amara hopes the film will encourage a rethink in restrictive migration policies around the world which result in people resorting to dangerous journeys like his own.
He believes that regardless of the well-documented perils of the unofficial routes, people will always try to make the trip whatever the personal price, in the belief they will make it through.
“Hopefully the film will bring about greater understanding and also encourage lawyers and judge to be more open minded,” says Amara, pointing to the fact that migration between Europe and Africa is a necessity for both regions and would be beneficial if managed better.
“Africa needs Europe and Europe needs Africa and we need to find a way, a solution.”
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