SLIFF 2019 Review – BUT NOW IS PERFECT

BUT NOW IS PERFECT will screen at Washington University’s Brown Hall (Centennial Greenway at Washington University, St. Louis) Saturday, Nov 16 at 8:30pm as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. This is a FREE event.

On the run from an arranged marriage with an elderly man, Becky arrives in Europe — via Libya — from her native country of Nigeria. Becky could scarcely have dreamed that she would find herself in Riace, a mountain village in Southern Italy’s Calabria region — a town that has become world famous because of flamboyant Mayor Domenico Lucano’s open-door policy for immigrants. Through the eyes of Becky and her fellow villagers, “But Now Is Perfect” documents how the aging members of the shrinking Italian community embrace the new, mostly African arrivals, with close friendships forming and lives becoming increasingly connected. But the idyll doesn’t last: Unhappy with the Riace project, the regional authorities exert political pressure on the mayor, who can no longer protect the immigrants he welcomed. Forced to leave the village, Becky ends up in an illegal immigrant camp, and her terrible fate leaves the inhabitants of Riace grieving and bewildered.

Review by Žiga Kastelic

BUT NOW IS PERFECT is a Dutch documentary that is essential to refugee crisis in southern Europe. Director Carin Goeijers focuses the story on Becky Moses and some other people living in the small village of Riace in south Italy. If you want to see and learn more about the refugee crisis, this is a great starting point.

In this village in south of Italy, a mayor took in refugees. It was long a beautiful story and an all around succes. He solved the refugee problem and the village’s problem. The problem is that young people are leaving the region and old people are staying. But then the politics took a hard turn and chaos began. Many refugees were relocated to several camps and there were even some fatal consequences. The story of  26-year old Becky Moses from Nigeria is a sad but unique one. Friendship, humanity, corruption and human errors are shown here exactly how it is. You can see and almost feel everything the people have to go through on a daily basis. Running from war, all they come to is, in most cases, just despair and not the happines they were looking for.

With me being head –to-head with this crisis, BUT NOW IS PERFECT is a movie I suggest you must see for yourself. Even if it doesn’t show all sides, it is one of the best documentaries at showcasing this problem. The documentary hits and hits hard. The emotional aspect is put on a test here as you see stories of refugees being treated like anything other than human. As said before, if you want to learn about this you go see it. A watch that is definitely worth your time and at 55 minutes not a long one. Short but strong. At the St. Louis International Film Festival this weekend.