Convergent Lines

8’03” video

I was born in Albania in the year 2000 and my parents are first generation immigrants.
I had no problem coming to Italy for the first time, in fact I felt so safe that I don’t even recall that very first day in the country I have been living in for most of my life now. But for some people that’s seen as a huge fortune. Many wish they could forget about their first day.

I decided to interview my dad and my uncle, both of them were born and raised in the same town and later on moved to Italy together, but in two very different ways. Both of them had to face the struggles that came with the years they decided to move in. Both of them equally valid and deserving to be heard.

My project was also the historical event of the “Vlora” ship, which was a cargo ship built in 196o in Ancona (Italy) that sailed under the Albanian flag until 1996. It is most famous for carrying tens of thousands of Albanian refugees to the Italian port of Bari on 8 August 1991, 30 years ago, an unprecedented mass arrival that caught Italian authorities unaware.