Teranga is a 35-minute observational short-documentary about youth, music and conquering collective trauma, shot in Naples over the course of two years. The documentary is a snapshot of the lives of two Gambian asylum-seekers during this time, as they wait in limbo for a response to their asylum request in corrupt migrant camps, and find their only solace in Teranga, an Afrobeats migrant-run nightclub in the heart of the city.

Fata and Yankuba fled poverty and a 22-year-dictatorship in The Gambia with very distinct dreams : Fata wants to become a world-famous DJ, and Yankuba is an aspiring biochemist. Haunted by their journeys across the desert, Libya and the Mediterranean sea, and dreaming of a future with indefinite leave to remain, they escape the boredom and fear of life by dancing away their trauma in Teranga. ”We dance to forget, we sing to forget. To forget the horrors that we passed through before we came to Naples”, explains Yankuba as he dances to Dozergang, the Naples adopted Gambian Afrobeats collective .

As the Italian political environment becomes increasingly hostile, leading to a rise in acts of racial abuse and violence across the country, music and dancing serve as a form of resistance and of escapism from the frustration in Fata and Yankuba's everyday lives. Just like them, 900,000 asylum-seekers across the EU are still waiting for their asylum claims to be processed. In Italy, asylum seekers wait for an average of five years for a final response and the issue of the physical documents. This documentary aims to participate in changing the narrative around one of the most heated issues of these past few years, particularly in Italy, by shedding a light on how bright, ambitious and talented many of those who landed on Italian coasts are, and how familiar and relatable their youthfulness is.