Written and Directed by Alex Camilleri
Starring Frida Cauchi, Jesmark Scicluna and Michela Farrugia
Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes
Luzzu will screen twice at the Philadelphia Film Festival, October 22 at 5:30 pm, and on October 29 at 11:45 am. It will also open at the PFS Bourse on November 5.

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

The absorbing characters study, Luzzu, is named for the 12-foot wooden boat that has been in Maltese fisherman Jesmark’s (Jesmark Scicluna) family for several generations. The sound of the nets being collected are heard even before the first images of the boat are shown. A long shot of the luzzu in the gorgeous Mediterranean Sea illustrates how Jesmark is a small fish in a big pond. (When Jesmark wipes his brow, viewers can practically feel the sun beating down on him). He loves his work, but it does not provide enough for him to support his family. Jesmark and his wife Denise (Michela Farrugia) have a newborn who is not growing properly and needs some special care and medical attention.

Luzzu shows the lengths that Jesmark will go as he fights to maintain his dignity and loyalty to the old ways or fishing, and/or adapt to the rapidly-changing world and market demands. Writer/director Alex Camilleri, making an auspicious feature debut, generates considerable empathy for Jesmark, a man who is both proud and stubborn, and possibly his own worst enemy. Jesmark is easily angered by an inspector who checks for illegal fish—it is a closed season for swordfish—or a market auctioneer who undercuts the price of his daily catch. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity to make ends meet, Jesmark recognizes a need, and creates an opportunity. In one sequence, he resells gas discounted for fishermen to drivers to make some money. While he contemplates an EU program to buy out fisherman and move them into other industries, Jesmark also gets involved with an illegal fishing operation run in part by Uday (Uday McLean). He soon risks everything he has for the cash he needs.

The rugged and handsome Scicluna gives a brooding performance that captures Jesmark’s feeling of being trapped in a net. (In his screen debut, the actor won an award at Sundance earlier this year.) Jesmark is principled when he won’t take work on a trawler because they destroy the seabed, and this makes him sympathetic when he makes bad decisions out of necessity. 

Luzzu shows Jesmark giving into pressure when he must deliver a box of fish to a contact for Uday, but he asserts himself when he insists that his mother-in-law, Carmen (Frida Cauchi), let him visit with his son, whom she just put down for a nap. His bitterness towards Carmen, who helps the couple out financially and otherwise, causes a rift between Jesmark and Denise. The film’s weakest aspect is their marital strife; Denise Is losing patience with her husband because she does not want their son to have less growing up than she did. This makes Jesmark feel emasculated—as when she has to give him money to buy special formula for the baby.

Jesmark admits that he has never left the island, and as Uday and others open his eyes to how the world is moving forward, he must figure out what he values—and what he is willing to sacrifice—to keep his head above water. While Scicluna makes his struggle engrossing, Camilleri inserts points about climate change and the political economy to add depths and shading to these fishermen’s situation.

Luzzu may not traverse new territory but the film immerses viewers in this world and this poignant, slice-of-life story. Viewers can forgive the film’s clunky metaphor of Jesmark rebuilding his luzzu and asking: If every piece of a boat is replaced, is it the same? because that question resonates. So too do the sounds, images, and emotions throughout the wistful Luzzu.