original title:
Shelter - Farewell to Eden
italian title:
Shelter - Rifugio
directed by:
cast:
Pepsi, Faycal, Nadia, Anne Marie Bredin, Abdel, Catherine Wihtol de Wenden
cinematography:
editing:
music:
Fabrizio Puglisi, Laura Loriga, Zende Music
producer:
Stefano Migliore, Lamberto Mongiorgi, Lois Rocque
production:
Caucaso Factory, Manufactory Productions, Luce Cinecittà, Rai Cinema, Ligne 7, with the support of Emilia-Romagna Film Commission, and Sardegna Film Commission Foundation
distribution:
world sales:
country:
Italy / France
year:
2019
film run:
81'
format:
colour
release date:
13/06/2019
festivals & awards:
Pepsi is an individual in sexual transition looking for a stable
job as a caregiver.
Former member of MILF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
active in an island of southern Philippines, she escape from
her country to work as a nurse for over 10 years in Gaddafi’s
Libya.
Because of gender discrimination, she has been forced to
join the flow of refugees. Then, she confronted with european
institutions as an asylum seeker, in the city of Bologna, Italy,
where she obtained the first acknowledgement of her status.
She could not stop her way.
Her journey continued towards France, crossing the dangerous
“pass of death” on the heights of Ventimiglia, strong of her
experience in the wild mountains of Mindanao.
She reaches Paris, where she acquires a second identity and
finds underground work offering massages, sharing interstitial
spaces among the harsh architectures of the metropolis.
Her voice over tale is a post-colonial parable, in which
European geography mingles with an intimate emotional
drama.
Her wander recalls the ancient myth of Europe, according to
which a young woman was kidnapped and raped by Jupiter, in
the shape of a bull, taking her to an island in the Mediterranean
from which she would have given the name to the continent.