"Fire at Sea is impressionistic and highly absorbing... (It) occupies your consciousness like a nightmare, and yet somehow you don't want it to end." A.O. Scott, New York Times

The first documentary ever to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and Italy's entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar®, Gianfranco Rosi's brilliant and unflinching Fire at Sea shines a light on the world's refugee crisis and illuminates a unique human ecosystem where migrants, struggling for survival, encroach on a timeless way of life.

On the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, we meet Samuele, a 12-year-old boy from a local fishing village, and Dr. Pietro Bartolo, whose sensitivity to the plight of the refugees is both inspiring and heartbreaking-his lifesaving efforts are clearly not enough. By contrast, Samuele's story holds a strong pull on our longing for family, community and the universal rites of youth. Intercutting sequences with a deft hand and absent dogma, Rosi explores the far corners of the island and its surrounding waters in search of essential truth. What he finds leaves us shaken, stirred and in awe.

Winner: Golden Bear (Best Film), Berlin