The people smuggling migrants across the sea — heroes, villains, or just business as usual?
Following the dealings of Mauritanian fixers ferrying migrants by sea, this film shows the human cost of irregular migration in West Africa. Interrogating the role of fixers as facilitators of the voyage across the sea as well as the casualties that occur, this asks if they are very different from 16th century slave catchers.
Direction
Iregbu lets fixers indict themselves without easy villainy.
Writing
The slave catcher parallel lands like a sledgehammer.
Director
Chinedum Iregbu
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mauritania was the last country to formally abolish slavery in 1981; the documentary's historical parallel carries bitter local weight.
Iregbu filmed over three years but the 45-minute cut suggests producers feared audience endurance for migrant suffering — a meta-commentary on whose pain we deem watchable.
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