The Night My Brother Disappeared

In 2013, an overcrowded boat carrying refugees from Eritrea sank off the coast of Italy. One of the hundreds of victims was the brother of human rights activist Adal Neguse, who lives in Sweden. With filmmaker Anna Blom, Neguse goes in search of the few survivors. Could they perhaps have met his brother during that fatal voyage?

While extensive media coverage at the time concentrated on whether the sinking represented a failure of international policy, this film allows the refugees themselves to speak. They talk about their terrifying journey, their current home, their dreams and their nightmares. Blom also travels with Neguse and others to Lampedusa, where a local fisherman rescued as many people as he could from the water.

Through these emotional stories and encounters, combined with his own memories and a collective remembrance ceremony at the place of the disaster, Neguse constructs a picture of the last days of his brother’s life.