Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

magonzalez-15762 I thought that Simshar was a very touching and emotional film. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I found it interesting about the background summary that they gave. The film seemed to have two different stories, one about the Simshar, and another about a merchant vessel that has stopped to rescue some migrants (I believe it was the Pinar E, but it could have had a fake name). The Simshar sinks, leading to the death of four out of the five members on board. There were some parts of the story that I did not understand however. For instance, why did the crew not fix their ship? They obviously knew that there was a problem, since they had to put out a fire a few days earlier. Is it because they could not afford the parts to fix the ship? And why was there such a hostility towards the refugees? There wasn't a great deal of logic behind their hatred, but when has there ever?

Pablo This was a very nice film for me to watch, surprisingly. Since I've never really heard anything ever about Malta, it was cool and new to see a film where it took place in. I also like how it wasn't a touristy vacation movie, it was a serious film that was very similar to a documentary. It gave me a very on depth view of what Malta was like and how the country is doing. Some things I liked about the movie were the camera angles. I felt like the directors really went the extra mile in that aspect. I really liked how when the boat exploded, the camera was underwater and you saw the explosion from underneath the surface, and then the dad dove in the water. I also liked the scene where the camera was facing the junk raft and the survivors from underwater as the turtle swam by. Another cool angle was the scene where it was raining and the camera was facing down at Theo and his dad as they were trying to catch the water. There were a lot of sad scenes also though, something I'm not really a fan of. For example, the scene where Musa died, the scene where Theo and his dad were trying to catch the rain, and the scene where they find Simon, but he can't find Theo, and then the camera goes to the underwater shot of his body sinking.

Jack This movie really gave some great insight into the perspective about immigrants. What struck me most about the film is how when one boat had a chance to save the lives of three people, one of which was a child, decided to not save them. They must see so many immigrants to the point where if they stopped to save them all that they wouldn't make any money. It is hard to imagine being out at sea and completely ignoring people who you could have saved. It also was interesting to see the struggles the fishermen were having. It made me want to look into why they weren't able to just go out and fish. Nautical borders popped up which made me wonder why in the end of the movie the men who wanted to go look for the three people stranded at sea could not. I could see having restrictions on fishing, for whatever reason, but it is hard to think that these people can't just go out anytime they want to on their boat. I decided to look deeper into the real story of Simshar. Simon had a role as an extra in the movie, which I thought was interesting. The director has known him for 6 years. Simon and his wife are back together now. The cargo ship that was focused on that did not save the characters in the movies actually saved some people later in real life. I think that is very interesting. They decided to not save one group of people but then later decided to save others. There were five people in real life, with only one of they surviving. There was an investigation and there is little evidence that the events actually happened the way the lone survivor described them. It seems that there is not many remains and there is nothing to discredit the survivors account.

thmurphy-37414 Simshar is a very amazing movie that really makes you think about the immigration that is going on in Malta. There are many different opinions that look into the immigration, yet many of them are very biased. As everyone in Malta hates anyone that comes into the country on a boat or however they make it into the country. The story starts off with the Red Cross and they eventually travel out on boat to a fishing boat that went and picked up many different African immigrants that are trying to make it to Europe. They have to stay on the boat until the decision has been made as to where they will be placed, either in Italy or Malta. The decision was eventually made and they were transported to Malta, where there was an outrage outside of the camp, but throughout that whole experience the opinion of the Red Cross man was changed completely. He realized that the immigrants do nothing wrong, and they have to suffer throughout it all. This is not even the main story, as the main story focuses on the fishermen and their life. They illegally fish for tuna, and eventually sneak out with the dad, grandpa, son, and worker on the boat and go very far out. A fire starts in the engine, and the boat explodes. The grandpa is killed, and the others make it in the water. There are many rescue opportunities that occur, but none are successful until the end, where the son and the worker have died, and the dad is the only one left alive. Before this, an insane thing that completely changed my mind on immigration, is when a boat saw them in the water, but turned around as they didn't want to pick up any immigrants and stop their fishing operation. To me that is amazing, yet I understand. I recommend you see this movie.