Fire at Sea
2016 film by Gianfranco Rosi
Fire at Sea (Italian: Fuocoammare) is a 2016 documentary film written and directed by Gianfranco Rosi. Filmed for almost a year in the Italian island of Lampedusa, it follows the 2015 European migrant crisis through the eyes of the people of the island.
The film had its world premiere in the main competition of the 66th Berlin International Film Festival on 13 February 2016, where it won the Golden Bear. It was selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated in that category, it was instead nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
Overview
The film was shot on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa during the European migrant crisis, and sets the migrants' dangerous Mediterranean crossing against a background of the ordinary life of the islanders. The main characters are a twelve-year-old boy from a local fishing family and a doctor who treats the migrants on their arrival. In his acceptance speech for the Golden Bear award, Rosi stated that his intention was to heighten awareness of the migrant situation, saying, "It's not acceptable that people die crossing the sea to escape from tragedies."
Synopsis
A young boy, Samuele Pucillo, cuts a forked twig from a pine tree to make a slingshot. With his friend Mattias Cucina, he then enjoys carving eyes and mouth on some shovels of prickly pear and throwing stones with the slingshot, as if against an enemy army. This happens on the island of Lampedusa, while the men of the Italian Navy's district office, received by radio a request for help, activate the search at sea with naval units and helicopters of the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, life on the island continues.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fire at Sea” is 2016 film by Gianfranco Rosi. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fire, film and Gianfranco, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2016 film by Gianfranco Rosi” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22238173. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016 and 2015.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Fire at Sea”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Fire at Sea primary sources, Fire at Sea archive and Fire research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fire at Sea”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Fire at Sea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.