Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano (2023) offers a haunting portrayal of African migration as a personal odyssey and a political indictment. This article argues that the film critiques deterrence as a tactic of immobilization and an industry built on the commodification of suffering. Drawing on first-hand testimonies and dramatizing the journey across the Sahara and Mediterranean, Io Capitano reveals how pain becomes productive: economically, cinematically and geopolitically. This article analyses the film through the lens of critical migration studies, postcolonial aesthetics and the political economy of borders. It foregrounds how cinematic form produces visibility, value and legibility, especially within a European deterrence regime, displacing violence onto African terrain. Through comparisons with other African migration films like Harragas and La Pirogue , this article examines how cinema can expose and aestheticize migrant suffering, urging a reconsideration of how migration is framed, governed and represented.
Kieron Cindric (Sat,) studied this question.