THOSE WHO FEEL THE FIRE BURNING
"Blazes bright with ambition … a poetic boundary-blurrer that seeks to obliterate the fiction/nonfiction frontier." – Hollywood Reporter
A ship packed with refugees and bound for Europe sinks in the middle of the night, leaving no survivors. From its wreckage a ghost emerges and travels on to its original destination, bearing silent witness to the journey of those who preceded it as they try to make a better life for themselves on these new, hostile shores.
First-time director Morgan Knibbe delivers Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, a reflection on the global refugee crisis like no other. Built out of real-life testimony from the survivors of the October 2013 shipwreck that claimed the lives of 360 Eritrean refugees as they sailed to Italy, Knibbe's unique film conjures a vision both lyrical and haunting – a Malick-esque reverie on hope, despair and the lengths to which humans will go in their eternal quest for freedom.
"There is a visceral intensity to Morgan Knibbe's ambitious and engrossing debut feature that marks him as a talent to watch." – Screen