by Marco Martinelli
for the first time on the screen 150 students from Nairobi (Kenya) schools Little Prince School, Ushirika Centre, Cardinal Otunga High School, Urafiki Carovana Primary School supported by AVSI
script Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari
script consultant Riccardo Bonacina
original music Daniele Roccato
assistant director Laura Redaelli
editor Francesco Tedde
post-production Antropotopia
general organisation Marcella Nonni e Silvia Pagliano
distributed by Maria Martinelli
consultancy and relations with the press Rosalba Ruggeri
executive producer Alessandro Cappello
produced by Ravenna Teatro/Teatro delle Albe
in collaboration with Fondazione AVSI, Vita non profit magazine, Kamera Film, Antropotopia
For the project The sky over Kibera, directed by Marco Martinelli, Avsi were awarded the Italian Senate’s 2019 Voluntary Work Prize, Culture section.
THE SKY OVER KIBERA is an art film: it tells us about the "bringing to life" of the Divine Comedy in the immense slum of Nairobi, Kibera, where the director has worked with 150 children and adolescents, reinventing Dante's masterpiece in English and Swahili. And he does so with his poetic and visionary style, interweaving other images with the filming of the play, sequences shot specifically in the slum to carry out the alchemical operation of transforming theatre into cinema. Three teenagers from Nairobi offer face and voice to Dante, Virgil and Beatrice: they are the guides that lead the viewer into the labyrinth of Kibera, where the "dark forest" in which the poet is lost is more than just a metaphor: in Swahili, Kibera means "forest". Around them a chorus swarming with bodies recites the tumult of being both beasts and damned, thieves and murderers, devils and corrupt politicians and poets who indicate the ways of salvation: between songs and acting, frenetic races and wild dances, the 150 protagonists give life to a fresco full of moving poetry, further confirmation of the universality of Dante's masterpiece.
