Luzzu, a Maltese feature film directed by Alex Camilleri, has been selected for the prestigious World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.
The festival will run from January 28 to February 3, 2021.
Luzzu follows the story of Jesmark, a struggling Maltese fisherman who is forced to turn his back on generations of tradition and risk everything by involving himself in black market fishing to provide for his wife and newborn child.
This is Camilleri’s debut feature film. It was produced by Rebecca Anastasi, Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger, 99 Homes), Alex Camilleri and Oliver Mallia.
Anastasi told the Times of Malta that Luzzu is both a milestone and a building block for the Maltese film industry.
Rebecca Anastasi.“The crew and myself are all super excited. It is a first for a Maltese production to be accepted in the Sundance competition and I am proud of the whole crew and Alex.”
She said that the crew felt honoured to be chosen. “For our movie to be one of the ten other movie title submissions to take part in this competition, we are over the moon.”
Anastasi said she hopes that the achievement will help continue building the local film industry.
"We hear so much about big American and British films being produced in Malta, so we are proud of this home-grown film with Maltese cast and crew working on it.”
She said that ideas for Luzzu began back in 2017. “It takes time to put the story together, bring in enough funding and put the crew together. Alex spent a lot of time building a relationship and bond with the cast.”
The film was shot last year in and around Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga, featuring many local faces and establishments from the area.
Alex Camilleri."Director Alex Camilleri spent time with the cast to build a strong connection with all the cast, including actress Michaela Farrugia and with David and Jesmark, who are actual fishermen in real life. We were really lucky to meet them, they are extremely charismatic on screen, their first time on screen. We casted these two fishermen in fictional roles and they did an outstanding job.”
Sundance praised the film as a “poignant, humanistic portrait of an eclipsing way of life” with Camilleri’s neorealist approach finding “the quiet power of small moments and the underlying intensity of ordinary people pushed into untenable positions.”
Luzzu was produced with the support of the Malta Film Fund and financial incentives provided by the Malta Film Commission and the Government of Malta. The 2021 Sundance International Film Festival will run at select screenings in the United States and online for US audience, international industry and press. Luzzu will premiere in Malta in 2021.