These are the words of Vito Fiorino who, on 3 October 2013, while lying at anchor waiting for the sun to rise to go out fishing with some friends, realized he was surrounded by shipwrecked people desperately calling for help.
Ten years later, we set off from Lampedusa – the island that has become Vito’s second home – to embark on a journey in search of some of the people to whom he gave a second shot at life. Vito travels with his friend Davide Demichelis (who made and hosted Radici, Timbuctu and other travel shows for RAI3).

A road movie through Europe, from Italy to Norway, via Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. The people who risked drowning ten years ago enjoy a new life: they work, live with their families or friends, and are perfectly integrated in the small or big towns where they have settled. We meet Alex in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, where he works as a hairdresser in an Eritrean shop.

Solomon, after leaving his country and reaching Libya with great difficulty, crossed the Mediterranean and now lives in Sweden. He became a Swedish citizen in 2014 and he now works as a bus driver, he is married and has two children. To this day, Solomon calls Vito “my father”.
Amanuel lives in Stockholm and is married to an Eritrean girl.

He still has the T-shirt that Vito gave him after rescuing him. With his family, we go and meet Aregai, who hosts Vito and Davide in his Swedish home for one night. In Uppsala, still in Sweden, we meet Kokob, the youngest boy rescued by Vito that 3 October. He lives with Adal, who lost a brother in that shipwreck. The journey through Sweden also takes us to Arba, where we find Fanus: one of the few women who survived the tragic shipwreck. We continue our journey all the way to the center of Norway to meet Abraham, who lives in a small village of 4,000 souls on a branch of the Sognefjord, the deepest fjord in Norway: 204 km. The encounter confirms an idea that Vito has always believed in: “Our life has  a story, and it leads us to our destiny”.

per Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo
Marzia Sica
Ilaria Caramia
Stefano Veneroso
Daniela Gonella
Giulia Copersito

per GMC Travel e Alberta Viaggi
Gianmarco Camaioni
Floreana Pistacchio
Simone Lapin-Peregrini
Roberta Stracqualursi

per Amnesty International – Italia
Francesca Corbo
Laura Petruccioli
Riccardo Noury

per Machiavelli Music Publishing
Elisabetta Spina
Pietro Giola

per Gariwo – La foresta dei giusti
Gabriele Nissim
Joshua Evangelista

per OIM – Organizzazione Internazionale delle Migrazioni
Flavio Di Giacomo
Nasmia Mallah

Lo staff del MUSA
Museo Universitario delle scienze antropologiche di Milano

L’artista writer Danilo “Neve”

This film is dedicated to all those who think that saving a life is the only possible option. But it is above all dedicated to the 368 victims of the shipwreck that occurred off the coast of Lampedusa on 3 October 2013. And to the over 25,000 victims make sure that they lie with them at the bottom of the Mediterranean.

We said never again. But it keeps happening.