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Narrative & characters

The narrative structure of Lampedusa. Dall’orizzonte in poi is built around the centrality of its male protagonist, Coast Guard marshal Marco Serra, whose voice directly introduces the story with a first-person opening (“My name is Marco Serra…”). This device functions not only as a tool of immediate subjective identification but also as a means of effectively anchoring the temporal setting of the story, fixed in 2010. Serra embodies the archetype of the “reluctant hero”: scarred by personal trauma (the death of his son) and initially disoriented in the unfamiliar island context, he is constructed as the outsider who gradually integrates into the social and symbolic fabric of Lampedusa. His trajectory of transformation is punctuated by key moments – his growing relationship with the young Dhaki, his cohesion with the rescue team, the support of local fishermen – and culminates in the identity-affirming declaration “I am one of Lampedusa,” sealing his metamorphosis.

Alongside Serra, the series introduces the female character of Viola, director of the First Reception Center, depicted as a figure devoted to a social mission yet marked by failed romantic relationships. Their bond unfolds according to familiar conventions of televisual melodrama: from initial professional conflict to growing attraction, culminating in a highly symbolic sequence in which Serra rescues Viola from a fire during a migrant revolt – an archetypal staging of the hero saving the woman. The romantic resolution thus provides a conciliatory closure to the narrative as a whole.

The rhythm of the plot is structured almost entirely around sea rescue sequences which, beyond their dramaturgical function, constitute the semantic core of the representation. The chosen visual strategies – handheld camera, underwater shots, aerial framing that recalls iconic images such as Massimo Sestini’s photograph of June 7, 2014 – reinforce the effect of realism and pathos, reiterating the centrality of the rescuers’ perspective while echoing the established media imaginary of migrant crossings.

In constructing the island’s social context, the figure of the hotel owner (played by Ninni Bruschetta) initially embodies a skeptical and hostile perspective, representing a strand of public opinion opposed to reception on economic grounds (the perceived damage to tourism). Yet he too is gradually “converted” by the direct experience of a rescue, eventually embracing the humanitarian cause. The series thus advances a markedly pedagogical and conciliatory vision of the Lampedusan community, emphasizing the possibility of individual redemption as the key to moral citizenship. In this respect, even the visual juxtaposition of “touristic Lampedusa” and “Lampedusa of migrant suffering” – despite its aestheticization – serves a precise discursive function.

By contrast, the narrative treatment of migrants themselves remains profoundly simplified. Migrant subjects are presented almost exclusively as mute victims, defined solely by their need to be rescued. When an individual story does emerge – as in the case of the child Dhaki – it is shaped in strongly sentimental and reductive terms: the boy’s narrative arc culminates in a reunion with his mother during the final sea rescue. The counter-narrative set in Libya, marked by stereotypical depictions of traffickers, operates almost exclusively as an emotional anticipation designed to be resolved in the closing sequence. In this way, the series confirms its tendency to privilege the Italian perspective – salvific, empathetic, and paternalistic – at the expense of a genuine engagement with the complexity of migrant stories.

Stereotypes & strategies of inclusion

Spectacular Rescues

The concluding sequence of the miniseries – a nighttime sea rescue carried out in the midst of a storm – functions as the emotional and narrative climax of the entire production. Realized through considerable production effort, including underwater shooting, atmospheric effects, and rapid editing, the scene is clearly designed to generate a powerful visual and affective impact. Darkness, torrential rain, and despair heighten the tension as the combined forces of the Coast Guard and local fishermen mobilize to save the shipwrecked migrants. Within this context, Marco Serra’s intervention assumes an almost mythical dimension: the hero, already redeemed, risks his own life to complete his salvific mission.

This vision of rescue blends spectacle and pathos, in which the dramatization of danger is ultimately offset by the triumphant efficacy of human intervention. Yet it is precisely within this aesthetic and emotional orchestration that one of the fiction’s central limitations emerges: narrative centrality remains firmly anchored in the perspective of the rescuer, while migrant subjectivities remain silenced. The emotional charge of the scene – and its cathartic effect – serves to reaffirm a specific rhetoric: the “good Italian,” driven by humanity rather than ideology, is the one who, disobeying formal orders, saves lives in the name of a higher ethic. Serra’s act thus becomes symbolic, simultaneously a gesture of personal and national redemption.

However, this narrative process tends to obscure the structural and geopolitical dynamics of migration, reducing a collective tragedy to a question of individual morality. Ultimately, the final rescue sequence is not only the spectacular culmination of the miniseries but also its key discursive node: it crystallizes strategies of (selective) inclusion and the narrative paradigm of “Italian salvation,” in which the suffering of the Other becomes the device that enables the redemption of the self.

Conversations

Tiziana Leone interviews actor Claudio Amendola, who explains how the idea for the series originated from his own initiative and reflects on the emotional impact of the migrant theme, highlighting the narrative’s non-rhetorical style (Tv Zoom Channel, September 19, 2016).

Strategies

Lampedusa. Dall’orizzonte in poi exemplifies a classic Rai fiction strategy: addressing themes of strong civic and political resonance while defusing them through a reassuring narrative readily digestible for mass audiences. Conceived by Claudio Amendola after hearing a real-life testimony on a talk show – concerning the rescue at sea of more than 600 migrants in 2008 – the series is set in 2010. The official reason, according to director Marco Pontecorvo, was the desire to restore a greater sense of “realism” to a period when the reception center had a different configuration. Yet this temporal backdating also makes it possible to avoid representing the contemporary border regime: practices of forced identification, administrative detention, the confiscation of documents, and the emergence of hotspots. Viewers are thus spared from confronting the darker side of European migration management, while the State is portrayed as a purely humanitarian actor. In this sense, the series situates itself in a moment prior to the media crisis of shipwrecks and before Lampedusa’s transformation into an international symbol of the externalized frontier. The result is a “pre-traumatic” Lampedusa.

Indeed, Lampedusa is designed to relaunch a “positive” institutional image of Italy, aligning with the international success of Fuocoammare (Rosi, 2016), which won the Golden Bear in Berlin in February 2016, and with the public celebrations surrounding the heroism of the Coast Guard – confirmed also by Rai’s decision to relocate the Prix Italia to the island in the same year as the broadcast.

Realism serves as one of the guiding principles of production: close attention was given to reconstruction (with the reception center simulated inside a barracks), the use of real-life footage at sea, the involvement of the Coast Guard, and even the casting of non-professional actors (such as the young Venji). Nevertheless, critics have described it as a production “of broad strokes,” in which the codes of traditional television fiction – archetypal characters, conciliatory endings, the centrality of the white male protagonist – prevail over the potential for formal and political innovation, while eliding the representation of tensions, conflicts, and internal resistances within the migration system.

Communication rhetorics

Alongside its narrative construction, Rai deployed an extensive media promotion strategy that confirms the intent to position Lampedusa as a form of “civic fiction” – useful, necessary, and socially relevant. In practice, however, the communicative apparatus surrounding the miniseries primarily serves to stage a system perfectly aligned with the logics of public service broadcasting: on the one hand, to educate the average citizen; on the other, to consolidate a cultural hegemony that frames the migrant as victim and the Italian as heroic savior.

In promotional terms, Amendola plays a pivotal role. More than an actor, he becomes the project’s moral spokesperson and originator, frequently interviewed on Rai newscasts, featured on infotainment programs, and issuing civic statements in support of the Coast Guard. The distance between actor and character diminishes, and this fusion of real person and televisual persona – characteristic of Rai seriality – constructs a semantic field in which “humanity” becomes a national and virile attribute, embodied in a familiar face.

The circulation of promotional clips, interviews, and behind-the-scenes material on social media and television further amplified the effect. The fiction was framed as “necessary” and “urgent,” with actors positioned as both experts and witnesses. Even on programs such as Porta a Porta, Lampedusa became both news and a topic of debate, though always within a framework that never questioned the political management of migration. The emphasis remained fixed on rescue, on the technical expertise of Italian forces, and on the stories of mothers and children saved at sea.

All of this is embedded within a broader operation of constructing Lampedusa’s image as a “welcoming city,” functional both to institutional narratives and to forms of symbolic tourism. The series, like other events (the Pope’s visit or the relocation of the Prix Italia), is part of a process of normalization and spectacularization of the island, designed more for external observers than for its inhabitants. This is an instrumental use of territory and history – telling only what can be emotionally capitalized while excluding everything disruptive: protests, refusals, failures in reception policy, and experiences of social marginalization.

Conversations

Circulation patterns

Broadcast in prime time on Rai Uno on September 20 and 21, 2016, Lampedusa. Dall’orizzonte in poi followed a traditional distribution model, supported by extensive media coverage and cross-promotion across various public service channels. However, the two-year delay between its production (2014) and its airing suggests a degree of hesitation on the part of Rai executives, likely connected to the sensitive and controversial nature of the subject matter.

Beyond its television broadcast, the series also enjoyed significant post-television circulation, particularly on the island of Lampedusa, where it was screened in public spaces and informal contexts to heterogeneous audiences composed of residents, tourists, and migrants. These collective viewings often sparked critical debate, highlighting the gap between the idealized representation of hospitality and the lived experiences of those directly affected. Some migrant viewers, interviewed after the screenings, emphasized that reality had been “much worse” than what was depicted in the fiction, thereby exposing the partial and somewhat sanitized nature of the televisual gaze.

The intersection of production choices and distribution strategies ultimately reveals an explicitly national and pedagogical intent, aimed at Italian audiences and oriented toward the construction of a collective moral identity.

Reception

The series achieved solid ratings, with figures higher than the average for Rai’s “civic” productions of the post-2000 era. The first episode drew approximately 4.17 million viewers, corresponding to a 17% share, while the second was watched by 3.3 million viewers, with a 13.4% share. On the critical front, responses were mixed: newspapers such as Il Manifesto and La Repubblica praised its attempt to construct a “narrative alternative to news reporting,” whereas others, including Il Foglio and Voyages Journal, criticized its excessive rhetoric and paternalistic tone.

The series attracted more nuanced attention in academic contexts, where Lampedusa has often been examined in relation to contemporary productions such as Fuocoammare and Terraferma (Crialese, 2011). Within this framework, the fiction has been interpreted as an effort to project a reassuring, “white” and innocent image of welcoming Italy, in which conflict is smoothed over through an emotional and conciliatory narrative. The empathetic strategies it mobilizes function less as tools for critically interrogating the structural asymmetries and power dynamics that govern the border than as mechanisms for reassuring the national spectator.

Italian and foreign press

Italian press

Flippo Baracchi, “‘Lampedusa – Dall’orizzonte in poi’. Ratings Beyond Rhetoric,” Il Fatto Quotidiano, September 27, 2016.

«Better late than never. It took eighteen years to turn the daily reality of Lampedusa into a nationally broadcast popular drama. Since the establishment of the Identification and Expulsion Centers (under the 1998 Turco-Napolitano Law), Italian public television had failed to provide popular storytelling about this reality, though it has been scrutinized daily by newscasts and thematic programs. Perhaps it was the victory at the Berlin Film Festival of Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary Fuocoammare, and its recent selection as Italy’s submission for the Oscars (not to mention the vast independent audiovisual production of recent years on the subject, carried out by filmmakers and operators who have filled festivals across Europe), that reawakened the public service mission of the broadcaster on Via Mazzini. […] Lampedusa – Dall’orizzonte in poi, directed by Marco Pontecorvo and aired on Rai Uno on September 20–21, is an example of how the dramatization of themes of integration can serve as an informative alternative to straight news coverage, even for television audiences».

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Aldo Grasso, “The Migrants of ‘Lampedusa’: A Politically Correct Series,” Corriere della Sera, September 21, 2016.

«In cases like this, it is difficult to jot down a few critical lines about a television drama. The events depicted are so painful that one cannot escape the urgency of the subject matter. Does it even make sense to talk about direction, writing, or acting when faced with corpses floating in our sea? Or with uprisings in reception centers? Or, again, with the determination of the center’s director, played by Carolina Crescentini, in her constant struggle for the rights of migrants? Lampedusa is a curious example of “politically correct” drama: not so much in relation to the institutions (the work of the Coast Guard is, of course, commendable, and the citizens of the island deserve our deepest gratitude), but rather in what the two protagonists say and do. Their world is divided neatly between good and evil; every action is cast as a mission to save the world; they see themselves as instruments of ultimate redemption.

It would be interesting to understand to what extent this “political correctness” aligns with the editorial line of public service broadcasting – or, more precisely, whether “political correctness” is simply the bare minimum required in order to qualify as public service».

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Stefano Crippa, “Lampedusa. The Landings in a Television Drama,” Il Manifesto, September 16, 2016.

«How far is it possible to blend tragedy – the landings of undocumented migrants, life in reception centers, failed politics – with the elements of television drama without slipping into rhetoric? Marco Pontecorvo attempts this with his two-part miniseries Lampedusa – Dall’orizzonte in poi, broadcast on Rai Uno in prime time on September 20 and 21. […] The migrants – crammed into fragile boats – are taken to the reception center run by Viola, played by Carolina Crescentini: “To play this role I had to forget I was an actress and enter the character’s mindset. The impact of the island was overwhelming: discovering the work of the staff at the center, their strength, their incredible resilience. In the emergency room you see people explaining they have broken ribs from beatings, women whose fainting spells conceal pregnancies often the result of violence. I wanted to witness the landings myself; I stood close to the pier, out of respect, not to interfere with the work. No, you cannot speak about or exploit these events without having seen them, and we must also stop thinking about building walls – especially we Italians, who once did everything to bring one down”». 

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Guido Reverdito, “Long Life to the Landings: The Convenience of Horror. Lampedusa Between Humanitarian Emergency and Exploitation on Film,”, Voyages: Journal of Contemporary Humanism.

«As is immediately apparent, the themes and settings are ostensibly the same as those tackled first by Emanuele Crialese in Terraferma and later by Gianfranco Rosi in Fuocoammare. But in Lampedusa – Dall’orizzonte in poi, the tragedy of shipwreck survivors – saved by the courage and resourcefulness of the Coast Guard and then nursed back to health by the dedicated care they receive within the turbulent, perpetually restless environment of the island’s reception center – quickly devolves into an irresponsible lure, a mere functional pretext to capture television ratings. The series capitalizes on the topicality of its subject matter and the implicit emotional blackmail it carries, once it is grafted onto the canonical tropes of television drama.

More than the plight of the desperate migrants arriving in Lampedusa – having endured unspeakable hardships on journeys that can last for years – what truly matters here are the two protagonists and their slow rapprochement. From their initial screwball-style quarrels to the gradual solidification of a bond born of professional collaboration and shared views on hospitality, everything inevitably culminates in the most predictable of endings: love triumphs, generously coated with layers of feel-good sentimentality to hold it all together».

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