Gianfranco Rosi’s “Notturno” was shot over three years along the rattled borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria, and Lebanon in the director’s signature observational – but also empathetic – style.
The impressionistic doc captures people who have long been contending with the ravages of war and terror, most recently inflicted by Isis.
Whose members, incidentally, at one point tried to kidnap Rosi.
He managed to obtain access to some very sensitive material while also filming fragments of everyday life.Rosi’s latest work, which segues from migration-themed “Fire at Sea” that won the 2016 Berlin Golden Bear and “Sacro Gra,” winner of the 2013 Venice Golden Lion, has been selected by the Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York film festivals.
A feat matched only by “Nomadland” this year.He spoke to Variety about the challenges of this project in which the “whole area becomes an imaginary space” and the only borders are those “between life and hell.
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