Mediterranea has finally reached Europe’s movie screens.

The critics were enthusiastic about this debut movie of Jonas Carpignano, a young Italian-African-American director who received the critic’s prize during this years’ Cannes festival. The movie (a coproduction between Italy, France, the US, Germany and Qatar), which was filmed in Morocco and Calabria, tells the story of two immigrants from Burkina Faso who reach Italy after a long journey through the Libyan desert, and get involved in the revolt of Rosarno of 2010. Mediterranea is a story about the precariousness of globalisation, the author mentions, but also about prejudice and what being a migrant in contemporary Europe is like.

I must admit I haven’t yet seen the movie, but as soon as I do I will post my impressions. In the meantime you can read the Guardian’s review here.

 Camille Hawthorne just posted an extensive review of Igiaba Scego’s novel ‘Adua‘, on Africa as a Country. Hawthorne, whose research analyses the politics of Blackness in Italy, diaspora theory, and postcolonial science and technology studies, situates the novel in the persistent expressions of racism in Italy, but also in experiences of a more liminal kind. Rather than depicting subjects “trapped between two worlds,” she writes, Scego’s novel succeeds in portraying a range of experiences that–while still structured by racism, misogyny, and other axes of power–can do justice to the changing face of Italy today.

Colonial representations -if at all admitted- have been pretty much dominated by the Italian conquest perspective, but that image is slowly starting to change, thanks to the contribution of Sego and others. Also have a look at the interesting lecture Sego gave at NYU.