Jesmark Scicluna, Michela Farrugia, David Scicluna
A man risks everything to provide for his family in Maltese-American writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri’s honest, affecting and highly accomplished debut, produced by Ramin Bahrani.
Malta: Self-employed fisherman Jesmark (compellingly played by non-professional actor and real-life fisherman Jesmark Scicluna) is struggling to make ends meet in an increasingly harsh market. With a wife and young baby to support, he’s constant battling both EU legislation (which limits the types of fish that he can catch) and the giant commercial trawlers that dominate the sea. Facing mounting economic strain and seeing no legal way forward, Jesmark happens on a black-market operation that could offer a solution – albeit a perilous one – to his problems.
Taking its name from the Maltese word for the country’s traditional fishing boats – from which cheerfully coloured palette cinematographer Léo Lefèvre takes his cue – Luzzu is both an intimate and authentic character study and a crushing lament at the loss of community and cultural traditions in the name of progress.
