Arquivo

After the death of her father, Assane, a young Moslem Senegalese interrupts his studies to emigrate to Italy. He is shipwrecked in Lampeduza and begins a journey in which, with much difficulty, he crosses Italy from south to north. He wants to get as far as Villa Literno, near Naples, where his cousin Makhtar guarantees he has a job waiting for him. But the job is unstable and fraught with danger. He finds his way to Florence to see Salimata, another cousin, whose French mother is a model. She wants to help him to find a job and regulate his situation in the country. But he cannot accept because the man she lives with is against his religious principles. In Turin, where he knows nobody, Assane leads a clandestine existence and takes heart through his faith and by writing letters to a former professor. Italian master Vittorio De Seta -one of those interviewed - acknowledged in the book Cinema Político Italiano - Anos 60 e 70, edited by Mostra in partnership with Cosac & Naify - made a docudrama on a subject that is rare in cinema in his country. Aware of the new reality in Italy, each day taking in more immigrants from poverty-stricken countries or from countries at war, he shows the path of the clandestine Senegalese. The film records the varied feelings these immigrants arouse: solidarity, aversion, and violence.