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Migrant Sea

MIGRANT SEA is a multimedia documentary that sheds light on the experiences of African migrants who have survived dangerous journeys from their home countries to reach Europe. The project includes migrant-led mini-documentaries, essays, multimedia content, and explainer articles. Through an immersive and emotionally driven approach, MIGRANT SEA offers an intimate exploration of the voices, history, and realities of Sub-Saharan migration today. With migrants and refugees narrating and telling their own stories across different media, platforms, and forms of storytelling, we hope that their voices can finally be truly heard.
website password: marenostrum

  • Stephane Rinaldo Grasso
    Director
    Far From Home, Women of the Deep South, NKP, La Coupure
  • Stephane Rinaldo Grasso
    Writer
    Far From Home, Women of the Deep South, NKP, La Coupure
  • Stephane Rinaldo Grasso
    Producer
    Far From Home, Women of The Deep South, NKP, La Coupure
  • Roland Cody Larocque
    Cinematography
    Oversight, Precious Cargo, Fester, I Want to Be Like You, K.N.K., Khao, Meat
  • Stephane Rinaldo Grasso
    Cinematography
    Far From Home, Women of the Deep South
  • Lorenzo Signoretti
    Associate Producer
    Cyrano, Gore, Flor de la Mar, House of Gucci, The Flight Attendant, Six Underground
  • Evren Boisjoli
    Associate Producer
    Fauve, Upshot, Am, Dinner for Three, Pre-drink
  • Project Type:
    Installation, Interactive Film, 360 Video, Other
  • Variable Runtime Details:
    The documentary consists of multiple, interconnected mini-documentaries: photodocs, film docs, an audio doc, a 360 doc, interactive maps, first-person essays by migrants about their journeys, articles, and migrant-produced art. As a result, the runtime can last anywhere between 5 minutes (browsing the website or reading an article) to 6h46m (if one were to view everything. If one were to only watch the video and VR films, the runtime would add up to 42m42s.
  • Production Budget:
    15,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English, French, Italian
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Slamdance Film Festival
    Park City, Utah
    United States
    January 19, 2024
    World Premiere
    DIG (Digital, Interactive, Gaming)
Director Biography - Stephane Rinaldo Grasso

For the past 15 years, Stéphane has directed large-scale commercials, co-directed music videos and experimental films, created photo and video documentaries for NGOs worldwide and produced content for media outlets such as Vice, AFP, Bloomberg, and the CBC. Throughout his career, he has focused on developing a collaborative, diverse and inclusive approach to filmmaking, while highlighting the voices and stories of the underrepresented. For four years, Stephane investigated Mediterranean migration as a part of an MA in Digital Journalism, developing Migrant Sea so that it could one day be produced as a full-fledged documentary project.

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Director Statement

The mainstream narrative of Sub-Saharan migration has excluded the very people at its core; those who have experienced the long, difficult and dangerous journeys through Africa, across the Mediterranean and onto Italy. It has also failed its audience by providing only an incomplete picture of migration, rarely exploring realities and root causes in countries of origin, European involvement in Africa, the terrible journeys before the Mediterranean, migrant potential in Europe and migrant success stories. Discourse and analysis are dominated by white, Western journalists, analysts and politicians, focusing on short-term political and social impacts to Europe. Through 2015 and to this day, most migrant stories have either revolved around dramatic arrivals or impoverished suffering in refugee camps. Without complex portrayals, a variety of voices and a variety of stories, audiences have found themselves with compassion fatigue. In turn, the stories of migrants have largely fallen out of the news cycle, ignoring the realities of millions already in Europe.
MIGRANT SEA is a response to this broken narrative.