Save Our Souls

Bobbing around on Mediterranean waters aboard the Ocean Viking, aid workers from the French relief service SOS Méditerranée gaze at the horizon. Is that a rubber dinghy in the distance, or is it garbage? The organization sails up and down the Libyan coast looking to pick up refugees in boats. On board is a 30-strong team ready to offer help and support refugees with their asylum applications.

Six weeks long, filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Bonnet Met uses a simple camera to track events on board, from departure to arrival. It’s not long before they pick up a group of 92 people of many nationalities from a dilapidated boat. The aid workers give the refugees life vests, and provide blankets, beds, and water. And then they start documenting their often terrifying escape stories.

It is several weeks before they reach their destination on the north Italian coast. Along the way the refugees help with the cooking, share experiences and photographs, and return to an almost normal way of life in this beautifully filmed tribute to compassion.