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American-Maltese Director Alex Camilleri’s debut feature film Luzzu is the story of Jesmark, a Maltese fisherman coming to terms with comprises he must make to his entrenched familial values. It’s part drama, part social-realist thriller and is anchored by a tremendous central performance by real-life fisherman Jesmark Scicluna. In addition to his protagonist, Camilleri continued his neo-realist approach in making Luzzu, casting non-actors across the entirety of his film which gives it a grounded authenticity. This authenticity is backed by Jon Natchez’s (of The War On Drugs and Beirut fame) score which begins with serene textures that underpin Jesmark’s life on the water before reflecting the building tension of his compromised ethics through pulsing electronic rhythms. Dn spoke with both Camilleri and Natchez ahead of Luzzu arriving in cinemas tomorrow to discuss the practicalities of Camilleri’s street casting process, his multi-role perspective as a creator,...

The film-maker wanted to tell his Maltese story as authentically as he could – so he hired non-actors, ditched the script, and captured the spirit of the island

Cousins Jesmark and David Scicluna, both fishers by trade, had never acted a day in their lives when Maltese-American film-maker Alex Camilleri spotted them in Għar Lapsi, a small inlet on the southern coast of Malta. Camilleri had flown to the Mediterranean island in search of fishers to star in his Maltese-language film Luzzu, but he was running out of time. The next day, he was due to fly back to New York, where he was working as an associate editor on Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. In a final attempt to find suitable actors, Camilleri drove down to Għar Lapsi with the film’s casting director, Edward Said.

Jesmark Scicluna, who went on to win the special jury award for...

"If you change every piece of a boat... is it still the same boat?" Kino Lorber has unveiled the official US trailer for an acclaimed indie film from the tiny island nation of Malta titled Luzzu, which first premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year where it won a Special Jury Prize for non-professional lead actor Jesmark Scicluna. Set on the island following an old school fisher, a man risks everything to provide for his wife and newborn son by entering Malta's black-market fishing industry. Scicluna is a real life Maltese fisherman, and co-stars with Michela Farrugia, David Scicluna, Frida Cauchi, and Uday McLean. The new film "heralds the arrival of writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri, a gripping storyteller in the neorealist tradition of early Luchino Visconti and the Dardenne brothers as well as his mentor Ramin Bahrani, a producer of the film." This is one of my favorite discoveries...