Life
Europe in ashes, Africa an oasis: TV show puts immigration in reverse
The year is 2063. By now, all of Europe’s volcanoes have come to life and erupted, spewing out thick plumes of ash into the atmosphere. Dense black clouds of dust envelop the murky sky and plunges the entire continent into total darkness.
All of Europe lies in a pile of rubble leaving only air that is polluted and unfit for breathing. With Europe descended into chaos, the only way to survive is to flee south to the only place where the sun continues to shine: Africa.
Set five decades from now, Usoni is a Kenya-based TV production that turns the issue of migration to Europe on its head. The futuristic show depicts Africa as mankind’s last cradle of hope in the wake of a series of natural disasters.
Usoni follows the compelling story of Ophelia and Ulysse, a young couple who desperately try to escape Europe’s terrible conditions and head to Africa, the land of the sun, which holds the promise of a better future for them and their unborn child.
Setting off from Lampedusa, the Mediterranean port serving as the gateway to the African oasis, the two protagonists embark on an arduous journey fraught with peril and sacrifice as they try to reach Lake Turkana in East Africa.
Usoni creator Marc Rigaudis, a Kenya-based French filmmaker and author, says the show is portraying the reversal of immigration trends against the backdrop of climate change and stagnant economies. “It’s put in the future just to talk and show what is happening now,” says Rigaudis. “The message is very strong and universal… putting the world in front of the mirror, like exposing the injustices of the world for so many centuries — everything is very symbolic.”
Reversing trends
Nothing is more symbolic than setting the story’s opening scenes in Lampedusa; the small Italian island on the southern edge of Europe known as frequent destination for refugees seeking to enter EU countries. Each year, tens of thousands of people set out on crammed and rickety wooden boats to cross the rough waters of the Mediterranean Sea, fleeing poverty and conflict in search for a better life.
The journey is dangerous and deadly shipwrecks are common — more than 300 African migrants died last October after their ship sank off Lampedusa’s shores.
