Luzzu (2021)
Director: Alex Camilleri Run Time: 94 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2021
Starring: David Scicluna, Frida Cauchi, Jesmark Scicluna, Michela Farrugia, Uday McLean
Country: Malta
Language: Maltese, English
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About the film:
Special Jury Award winner at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Jesmark, a struggling fisherman on the island of Malta, is forced to turn his back on generations of tradition and risk everything by entering the world of black market fishing to provide for his girlfriend and newborn baby.
Luzzu was Malta’s official submission for Best International Feature at the 94th Academy Awards and earned Director Alex Camilleri the Someone to Watch Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
About the filmmaker:
Alex Camilleri is a Maltese-American writer, director, and producer. His thesis project at Vassar College, Still Here, won Best Student Documentary at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at Cannes. As a film editor, his work has screened at festivals around the world, including Venice, Telluride, and New Directors/New Films. In 2016 he was selected for the Sundance Institute’s Editing Residency, where he workshopped Keep The Change, which won Best Film and Best Director at Tribeca 2017 as well as a FIPRESCI prize. His first narrative short, Prickly Pear, was the first Maltese film to play at TIFF.
The first Maltese feature to compete in a major international festival, Camilleri’s debut feature Luzzu, won a Sundance Jury Prize for its nonprofessional lead actor and real-life fisherman, Jesmark Scicluna.
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