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A hardworking Maltese fisherman, Jesmark is faced with an agonizing choice. On the one hand, he could repair his leaky luzzu – a traditional, multicolored wooden fishing boat – in the hopes of eking out a meager living at sea for his wife and newborn son, just as his father and grandfather did before him. On the other, he could decommission the boat, which has been passed down for generations, and give up fishing altogether in exchange for an EU payout. LUZZU won a Sundance Jury Prize for its nonprofessional lead actor Jesmark Scicluna, a real-life Maltese fisherman, and heralds the arrival of writer-director-editor Alex Camilleri. His gripping film operates in the neorealist tradition of Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rosselini, and the Dardenne brothers and calls to mind the socially engaged cinema of Ken Loach and the film’s producer Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, CHOP SHOP).

“Sun-drenched LUZZU is an unaffected triumph with a simmering power, the type of deceivingly familiar film that helps us sail into a place and a lifestyle most of us ignore but that are made vividly compelling in the hand of a new storyteller with classically honed sensibilities.” – Carlos Aguillar, The Los Angeles Times

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