Bringing Europe's migrant crisis to the Oscars

Los Angeles

A FEMALE voice crackles over the radio, begging for rescue from a crowded migrant boat sinking into the Mediterranean Sea as the coastguard barks over and over: "What is your position?"

Like much of Italian master Gianfranco Rosi's cinematic, Oscar-nominated documentary Fire at Sea, this opening scene plays out like a narrative thriller, except the lives in danger are real.