In this acclaimed film which won top prizes at the Venice Film Festival as well as a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2024 Academy Awards, writer-director Matteo Garrone presents a “reverse shot” of the immigration experience.

Unfurling an epic, cinematographically magnificent odyssey from West Africa to Italy, the story is told through the mind’s eye and experiences of two Senegalese teenagers living in Dakar who yearn for a brighter future in Europe.

Yet between their dreams and reality lies a treacherous journey through a labyrinth of checkpoints, the scorched Saharan desert, a fetid North African prison and the vast waters of the Mediterranean where thousands have died packed inside vessels barely fit for passage.