Today at the Chicago International Film Festival: ‘Fire at Sea’

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Samuele Puccilo (right) and a friend shoot imaginary guns in “Fire at Sea.”

The Chicago International Film Festival continues through Thursday at AMC River East 21, 322 E. Illinois.

Director-writer-cinematographer Gianfranco Rosi parallels Italian lives on the island of Lampedusa with the lives and deaths of migrants in transit. Their paths never cross, except on screen in the allusive documentary “Fire at Sea.”

We meet a doctor handling bodies pulled from the sea. One patient is 12-year-old Samuele Puccilo. Another local is a radio DJ who reports the latest drownings and takes a song request from Samuele’s grandmother.

Rosi lived on Lampedusa for a year. The Italian navy let him shoot for a month on a vessel patrolling the Strait of Sicily. He also documents a tightly secured detention center. Italian authorities always wear gloves when searching and photographing the migrants.

Samuele is uninterested in going to sea like generations of fishermen in his family. One pastime with his pal is pretend-firing their imaginary guns. They aim over the Mediterranean, not down at foreigners adrift from Libya. 6:15 p.m. Oct. 25

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