Edit Item

Shelter: Farewell to Eden

Country: France | Italy, Language: English | Tagalog | French , 81 mins

Trans | Documentary | 2019

Director: Enrico Masi
Writer: Enrico Masi

CGiii Comment

A look at migration...through very different eyes. Not a film made with the audience in mind.

It's mind-numbing. Rather than hearing Pepsi's story in-depth, Enrico Masi has favoured a more abstract route...he films - ceaselessly - the mundane. By cutting these - wholly unnecessary - scenes out, the film would have been reduced to a less-monotonous 20 minutes or so.

Less monotonous, yes...but, more unpalatable. So, rather wisely, Mr Masi has diluted Pepsi's story. She does not show her face...after listening to what she has to say, she would be wise to conceal her identity forever!

She wants war - especially in Libya - so that she can work as an untrained nurse. Lives lost, lives in turmoil...so, that she can have a job! Some things may be thought...however, not everything 'thought' should be said out loud! Some people should learn to button their lips...

Not Pepsi...after what she has to say about immigration, not one country in the world would accept her! Quite right too! Her anger over colonialism may be justified in some circles...but, her solution is...absolutely terrifying.

Pepsi is an economic migrant from the Philippines...war has not torn her life apart. She does not come from a country where being trans is intolerable and/or criminal...she is an economic migrant who wants more, more and even more.

Immigration is not a 'right' afforded to everyone who wants to emigrate...and, neither should it be. Immigration should be about welcoming people in dire need. If Pepsi wants to progress in this world...she should deny all knowledge of this film and learn when to button it!

When a film is this anonymous...the credibility has to be questioned and challenged. Believing everything the filmmaker presents is akin to devouring every word printed in a tabloid newspaper.

Trailer...

Shelter - Farewell to Eden (international trailer) from Caucaso Factory on Vimeo.

The(ir) Blurb...

Pepsi is an individual in sexual transition looking for a stable job as a caregiver. Former member of MILF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front active in an island of southern Philippines, she escaped from her country to work as a nurse for over 10 years in Gaddafi's Libya. Because of gender discrimination, she has been forced to join the flow of refugees. Then, she confronted with European institutions as an asylum seeker, in the city of Bologna, Italy, where she obtained the first acknowledgment of her status. She could not stop there. Her journey continued towards France, crossing the dangerous 'pass of death' on the heights of Ventimiglia, strong of her experience in the wild mountains of Mindanao. She reached Paris, where she acquired a second identity and found underground work offering massages, sharing interstitial spaces among the harsh architectures of the metropolis.

Her voice over tale is a post-colonial parable, in which European geography mingles with an intimate emotional drama. Her wander recalls the ancient myth of Europe, according to which a young woman was kidnapped and raped by Jupiter, in the shape of a bull, taking her to an island in the Mediterranean from which she would have given the name to the continent.