♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." alison: good evening, i'm alison stewart filling in for charlie rose. we begin this evening with politics. the first month of donald trump's presidency continued on a tumultuous path this week. on monday, the national security adviser michael flynn was forced to resign after it was revealed he misled administration officials about his contact with the russian ambassador to the united states. yesterday, andrew puzder withdrew his nomination to be labor secretary after republican senators began telling the white house that they would not back the nominee. and earlier today, president trump nominated alexander acosta to fill that post. following the announcement, the

president shot back at claims his administration was not running smoothly. president trump: this administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that i cannot get my cabinet approved and they are outstanding people. alison: joining me now from washington is ed o'keefe of "the washington post." welcome. ed: great to be with you. alison: it was quite a day. tell me about alexander acosta, the new nominee for labor secretary. ed: well, he would be donald trump's first hispanic nominee to his cabinet, and a notable inclusion for a cabinet that so far did not include many other minorities. he is currently the dean of the law school of florida international university and a former top federal prosecutor in south florida.

he has held positions in the justice department before and has been confirmed to positions by the senate, so the white house feels that this one should be much more easy going man the puzder pick, which got caught up in a host of issues regarding his personal background, his business practices, and his own personal employment practices in his own home, if you will. alison: let's talk about that a little bit. explain to people why support from republicans specifically, started to unravel. ed: yes, as of wednesday, there were at least a dozen republicans telling top leaders they cannot support this guy. look, he has had a checkered past. he is the head of the restaurant firm that owns hardee's and carl's jr., and has been a supporter of president trump, and also a supporter of mitt romney in the past. he has a pretty reputable business record. but, there were concerns about a rancorous divorce he had from his first wife in the 1980's, that led to her appearing on the oprah winfrey show in 1990, in disguise, to discuss allegations of domestic abuse.

he has always denied this and she later recanted it. in addition to that, over the course of the ethics review going on in the last few weeks, he admitted to senators that at one time he had employed a housekeeper who was an undocumented immigrant. if there is one age-old rule in washington, even in donald trump's washington, it is that the senate does not confirm somebody who once employed an undocumented housekeeper. this goes back to bill clinton's presidency, it has tripped up all sorts of nominees. and that issue it seems to be, more than any other, the republican senators saying, how can we have a labor secretary who could not even follow federal labor laws that required him to pay taxes for his housekeeper and employ people who are here legally? alison: the press corps really wanted to talk about michael flynn. and really wanted to talk about who knew what and when. did we get any sort of clarity there? ed: the president made clear throughout the news conference that for him, the issue was not that michael flynn was having conversations with people in russia, it was that he lied to

the vice president and had done so more than once. he said, look, to me i do not have a problem with him speaking with russian officials, this is what people do during the transition, they talk to people in other countries, those officials in other countries, which is true. there were obama officials doing that during their transition. but they were not discussing sensitive matters like sanctions against that country. and donald trump mostly batted it away. oddly, he would say, you know, the leaks are true, but the news is fake, essentially to paraphrase him today. on at least one occasion. and that left the reporters scratching their heads. you say, wait a second, in essence you are confirming it, but you are slapping us at the same time for bothering to report it. and it caused a spirited, if not sometimes testy exchanges. what was marvelous about this, what was remarkable about this is it was so freewheeling and it went on for about one hour and 15 minutes. it was unexpected, this was not on the official calendar when the day began. it was hastily arranged.

mostly to talk about acosta's nomination for labor secretary. and it got freewheeling into conversation with reporters touching on that. and not only michael flynn, but also the first lady and her status at the white house. and even immigration. and of course, the travel ban which still faces legal challenges. alison: did he signal of all what will be his next priorities? ed: he did say at the prompting of a reporter that there will be changes regarding the travel ban and those issues next week. he did not get into specifics, but made clear changes are coming. we had anticipated that and he confirmed it. he said this issue for him, at least, is not going away. he was also asked about the program for children of undocumented immigrants in this

country, an obama-era program he said he had wanted to undo as quickly as possible. he admitted it is one of the most difficult situations he is dealing with as president and he does not necessarily want to do -- want to deal with it, because it is about kids and as a father and grandfather he is sensitive to their condition. and that will cause a lot of consternation for those conservatives that backed him specifically on the immigration issue, believing he would come into office to authorize a border wall and and that program. he has authorized the border wall and he is waiting for the money to pay for it. and now he says he is not going after that program. but, frankly, is only thursday. tomorrow could be another story. alison: something that happened that was interesting, something the media has been criticized about, there was fact checking of the president in real-time about his number of electoral college votes. how did that end up? peter was nbc's whoander, to his credit, brought up the president has said he had the largest vote count, he keeps saying 306, it is 304.

it was pointed out that the president, president bush in 1988 had more. he was in essence, in a line and we were able to see the president react to the fact that he was being fact checked in the front row. it speaks to the fact that this remains a president, now into the second month of his presidency, that remains really, deeply concerned about being taken seriously and is still to whatever reason eager ago.e scores from a year he is in charge, he is making change in policies, but he still spends time talking about hillary clinton and whether she was given information about what would be asked at those debates about her work as secretary of state and the fact he believes, wrongly, that he had won one of

the largest developed world electoral vote counts. alison: he has a rally this weekend, what is it? ed: a rally being paid for by his reelection campaign. he is going to florida to get back in touch with the regular people, folks that supported him, in a corner of florida where the enjoyed broad support. he is starting to do things that presidents do, he blamed the previous administration today. and barack obama did not early -- did that early on. and he is getting out into the country, talking to regular everyday americans, and explaining his policies to them. to be re-energized by the support of the people that he is interacting with. president obama did that, especially in the second term. we had been told early on that he was probably going to do this and we will see how it goes. the fact it is being paid for by his campaign is interesting, because it means it is designed overtly to be a political rally. he is not going to florida to meet with the governor or do

something else official. no, he is going to florida for a political rally that the white house says is being paid for by his political organization. alison: ok. thank you so much. ed: great to be with you. ♪

♪ alison: good evening, i'm alison stewart filling in for charlie

rose. maya angelou was an author, activist, actress and dancer. her writings about race and america are some of the most influential works of the past century. a new documentary, "maya angelou: and still i rise." chronicles her life and her legacy. here is a look at the trailer. >> every man in the world uses words, a writer must take these known things and put them together in a way that a reader says, i never thought of it that way before. ♪ >> my mother's boyfriend raped me, i was 7-years-old, so i

stopped speaking for five years. in those five years, i read every book in the black school library. and when i decided to speak, i had a lot to say. >> she was a dancer. she sang, she was an actress. >> she was a beautiful sculpture. >> she was a writer. >> when i reach for the pen to write, i have to scrape against those scars. >> she was responsible for teaching me why i should know more about my roots. i remember her being very angry. very angry. >> my mother taught me a lot about justice. the love of doing what is right. >> i know why the caged bird sings, it was a very important literary feat. >> it was really almost another bible for me. >> it was the opening for me to want to be a writer. >> it was the first time i read something that resonated. it touched the girlish part of me and reflected my own mother's life.

>> when i read it, i could not believe she was free enough to talk about it. >> i read those words and talk with somebody knows who i am. >> she had the voice of god. >> out of the hood of history's shame, i rise. i am a black ocean leaping and wide. bring innd swelling i the tide. bringing the gift that my ancestors gave i am the hope and the dream of the slave and so i rise i rise i rise ♪ alison: joining me are the film's directors and the

grandson of maya angelou, and the cofounder of the caged bird legacy. thank you, welcome. >> thank you. alison: you had an interesting relationship with maya angelou, you were her radio producer. tell me about the evolution of your role. rita: sometimes you feel like as a filmmaker that everything that has happened has prepared you for what will happen. and though i have done both radio and television, when i went into her home to do that fromam, it meant 2006-2010 i spent 3-4 days a month with her and i did not know at the time how much information i was gathering, how

i was learning her family, learning that president clinton might call and we might do in interview with tutu, and people would come by. so i realized this is about -- this is a documentary. and i have been rereading her work as a result of the job, so i knew that it was time to do it again, to bring it to a new format. so that more people might not be reading, but we needed to reach a wider berth. that is when things started to come together and i met bob. alison: how did she feel about the idea of documenting her life? rita: she said three things. she said, i do not need another thing. she had done seven autobiographical memoirs. and she said, did i know what i was asking? i really didn't. i asked her to go over her life when she had already done it. i think that became cathartic. but she was saying, do you know how big this story is? and you want to do this? it will take you all over the world. she did not need to say that.

it did those things and i am still answering that question. and she said, if you are going to take it, take it all the way. which meant, you better do a good job. triedthink that's what we to do, yeah. [laughter] alison: that made you laugh, why? colin: classic grandma. don't do anything halfway. [laughter] alison: it amazed me that nobody had done a documentary about maya angelou. do you know why that was and what made you think, i am someone that could publish this? bob: it was amazing. rita and i did not know each other in 2011 when we started and i was musing about her one day. i have a picture of myself with dr. angelou from a project i did with her and i was thinking about her and i did research and i was amazed, nobody had ever made a film about her. it was shocking to me given the breadth of her story and how

important she is in our culture. so i started to research and kind of reread the books and get prepared. and then i was introduced to rita through a friend. and our talents came together beautifully to make this film. it was a five-year project, but it was a phenomenal five years and an incredible journey. and it was a great privilege to be the ones to tell her story in a television format. alison: i want to ask you a very frank question, i know why i relate to maya angelou. what related to you as a white male? bob: that is a good question. i remember when i read, i "i know when i read,

sings," and ibird grew up in a community far removed from the african-american community. but when i read that book, especially because it is written in a poetic style and it is so honest, and it is so unbelievably honest that it really caught me and it made me in a way reevaluate my place as a white male, privileged person, etc. it was one of those books that hit me hard in a good way. alison: i want to pick up on something you said about maya angelou having to relive her life and in the parts that were incredibly painful. and many of them joyous. what was that like to watch her go through that process and what was it like for her going through the process of narrating her own life? rita: i think it was cathartic for her. when she decided to do it with everything, she would not do anything halfway. as colin mentioned. she would bring her total self to it, so when you see the film,

you see moments when she is overcome with emotion, and moments when she is hilarious. she is thinking back on that instance. sometimes it was painful to watch her go back. it was also painful because she was a patient of copd, and it was not widely known and we could only do about one hour of interviews and then she had to rest. she needed oxygen. so for her to want to do it that she committedce to it, she was 100% there. i like to say that when you are doing the subject, you are responsible and you have to be sensitive that you are working with a human being and working and their spirit

soul, and she is in her 80's. you are working with her life and you have to be respectful of that and let the story carry you and let her have the time and space to tell it and that is what we tried to do. alison: as her grandson while watching your grandmother and hearing all of the details, some of the gritty, difficult details, what was that like for you, just knowing her as grandma? colin: i think that my grandma has been open with me, and as she has been with all of the people in her life, she is an open book. so some of the hardest things she was talking about, we had had conversations about. i think for me, i was thinking about thinking about this story in one sitting, you sit around the table for 30-40 years and you hear these stories, one here and you are skipping years and going back and forth. but to see it told start to finish, that gave me the full understanding of the magnitude of who she was. what she traversed.

became.o who she that it wasn't one day that she woke up that she decided to be this powerful woman, it was a test of success and failure and heartbreak and joyfulness that brought her to that point and the point of clarity, one of her biggest things is clarity of life and human beings. alison: if you look at it from beginning to end, i wonder as you listen to these interviews, was there something about her that never changed? colin; she was steadfast in being courageous. that is the through line of her life, with all the disappointment and joy in whatever happened to her, she was enormously courageous. bob: she always said, courage

is the thing he valued the most because you cannot go on without having courage. that to me is what i witnessed in following her life story, she had the courage to suddenly go to africa on fairly short notice, to just experience that world. to engage in the civil rights movement. to become friends with martin luther king and malcom x. because there was a divide there. so i admire her courage and her ability to overcome obstacles constantly. it is amazing. alison: what were maybe 2-3 decisions she made that really set the course of her life? rita: as bob said, and we have alluded to, there is a through line and when we found that

line, we began the documentary with a quote, "you may incur defeats, but you must not be defeated." that was true for her and i think it is true universally for all of us. i think that the fact that she lost her voice, and decided in and of herself a couple of things -- she was raped, but she stopped speaking because she had enough inside of her to say as horrible as that was, she did not want anybody to die. that is a high-level intellectual process for her as a little girl. alison: because her rapist was killed. rita: yes. and she did not want anybody else to die. that is very humanitarian. she said the people in her life that loved her, they helped her to grow and she was able to accept the love of her fraternal grandmother, even though her mother had rejected her, her mother and father rejected her at that time. and here you have a woman,

henderson, that runs a store, and entrepreneur that has land for white people. who did you have to be in the jim crow south? this was somebody she saw by as mosys every day. and the teacher that allowed her to learn poetry again and to eventually speak. and who does not at some point in their life have a good teacher? and the love of her brother, the cheerleader, the man beside her after anything but her goodwill and the best for her. i think those things helped to build her and focus her as a person. later, she did have a better relationship with her mother and a struggled with rejection. but by then, she was supported organically by a community that we hope will exist for all of us, that we need very much. people who would teach her, her uncle that would teach her. all the components were there for education, faith, for love,

genuine brotherly love. i think those things supported her because she saw them early and she had a sensitivity to a handicap person, the racism. i will say that she crossed the the jimnes later in crow south to marry a white man, fact, which meant that she understood reconciliation and forgiveness. alison: we talked about the spiritual side, but what about her sassy youth? i do not think a lot of people know that she was such a performer. let's take a look at a great length -- clip of her performing. clip] video

>> i stopped dancing and started singing. >> maya angelou. [applause] >> i talked friends of mine into going, in the late 1950's. what i remember is maya angelou making her entrance, very tall, very grand. no shoes. ♪ [singing] >> she was an original, that is an understatement. ♪ >> she was refined with her movements. she was limbs, she was a beautiful sculpture. ♪ [singing] alison: what a performer. and she was a performer all through her life. i understood her better seeing that footage. what did you think when you first encounter that? rita: what i thought was, here she was a young woman at that time, how many women were doing what she was doing? and she already had a young son. so she was bringing all of that to herself.

i talked to her about it once and they had put down that she was from cuba and she was exotic on the album. she was not, but they needed that to sell it. and the things she had to go through during that time, i thought it was extraordinary. it took a lot of courage then. "i she would tell you, really wasn't a singer." but she sang. cook,e was really not a but she cooked. she did what she had to do in order to survive through those times. and as she kept doing things, she became stronger and more courageous and more knowledgeable about our culture. in very many facets of it. bob: people do not understand, in those years she was struggling to make a living.

she had a very young son, and she was really struggling. and she was dancing, later she ended up singing because she would get more money to saying. -- more money to sing. so she made decisions like that because she had to. it is hard to imagine that this icon that we think of, was actually in the 1950's and 1960's, struggling to raise a son without a husband. it was not an easy life. it looks like a lot of fun, but it is a lot of work. colin: singing also, i believe, this is what makes her attainable. if you really look at her speaking engagements, there is a melody to it, a harmony, there is tension and relief. she knows how to deliver a message. and she always starts with singing and it starts the tone and the rest of it flows. i think she utilized that later on. before, andok

later on in life she was a chef. she used all those moments and training to bring her forward. doing everything 100%, she brought everything to the table every moment. bob: she would start every interview with singing, to get her warmed up. it is amazing to watch. rita: i think the love of music continued because she would interview for the radio program and she loved country music. we did not get it in the film, but martina mcbride, she had opened for her. she is in brooks and dunn videos and somebody sent her a guitar, and she started taking guitar lessons.

gentry sent it. this is 2006. she kept growing and she loved the music, she loved the lyrics. and i think that is one of her quotes, everything dances. and you know, she had a melody to her. alison: watching her life, i was struck by her adaptability while maintaining his she was. toward the end of the film, you interview people who talk about when she first encountered hip-hop music. she sort of understood what it was, but she was not so sure about the way that language was used. why was she able to adapt and maintain herself? colin: my grandma was a lover of the arts and she supported art in any form. she said that which is human cannot be foreign to me. you created it, i do not care what country or instrument, if it is music and it is coming from your heart i can resonate with it. i do not think she separated walls between her and different types of music. i think she believed in reaching out to young people and understanding if she did not embrace hip-hop, that was a segment of people that she was

not going to be attainable to her. that is why she made friends and mike tyson in jail asked to see her. she went. she did not separate herself and i think that she felt like her pathway for was youth. if you do not get them on board, where will you go? rita: she said to me that people in her age group should be ashamed to die, that they did not do enough for the younger people. and when we did the weekly radio show over four years, there was a point when i told her that i thought she should speak with the rappers. knowhe was like, i don't about that. i said, but they are the poets of today, that is what is happening.

and we did a show with kanye west, and j quest. and she read the words of their work and even though some of them, she said, it cannot carry the necessary -- she did, she did go through that and she would say, maybe they will stop using some of those words in their time. but she said, i will not let that separate me from them. and i think that she wanted that, that artistry of generations. it was something she grew up with, raised by a much older woman and then having her brother -- it was just the cities and towns of arkansas and living in hawaii, and living in egypt, living in london, living in ghana, and in new york and st. louis. it was not something that many people did, so you can actually track history through her life, american and international history, in a much more colorful

way than being given facts. let's be honest, history has not been told from a black woman's point of view. so that is one of the things this documentary does, it gives you more than an oral history because of the research. and you will see over 314 photographs that were pulled from 4000, video pulled from over 150 hours. that was her life. she was so well documented, and self documented with seven autobiographical memoirs, 36 books before she died. alison: what did you learn about your grandmother after watching the film and going through the process of talking about her and thinking about her life? colin: i do not know that i particularly learned one fact about her life, i am her only grandson. so i spoke to her for 41 years. [laughter] colin: she wanted me to understand her story, the things she went through.

not to pump herself up, but because it was family and this is history. what i really have learned is it is more about how other people received here. we have gone to multiple screenings and one of the things we saw is a woman said she saw tar a -- saw the documentary and felt healed. i think that her story is such a powerful story, that people maybe you have read only one book, or maybe sell the clinton in operation, they do not see the birth of it. and this woman's wind was taken away. when you see the full story, that is the full impact of energy is coming to life and that is something i am proud of and having rita and bob being part of this, this would not have happened in any other way if they had not come together and formed a relationship with my grandma.

proud to standing her and carrying her legacy a little further down the road. alison: so you see her as grandma, not maya angelou? [laughter] colin: always eat the food that has been given to you when you are at symbiosis table. for me, the biggest thing that she gave me was the statement that she said, she was then hand at the small of my back, she would never let me fall. and that means she has watched out for me before and continues now and i have multiple pieces of evidence of her continuing in my life. alison: thank you so much. colin and the directors of "maya angelou: and still i rise." premieres today, february 21.

when we come back, we talk to the director of "fire at sea." ♪

♪ john: good evening, i'm john micklethwait, editor-in-chief of bloomberg, filling in for charlie rose. "fire at sea" is the new oscar-nominated documentary from gianfranco rosi. the film is set in the italian

island of lampedusa, which has played a critical role in the european migrant crisis. it is closer to -- than italy. half a million people have landed there and nearly 30,000 have died. a.l. scott of "the new york times" writes, "mr. rosi does not spare his viewers glimpses of pain." the film is impressionistic and intensely absorbing. here is the trailer for "fire at sea." ♪ [sound of waves crashing] [engine revving] [helicopter whirring] language]in foreign >> your position?

please, your position? >> help us please. >> how many people? >> we have small children. please help. [helicopter whirring] [water splashing] [indiscernible chatter] [water splashing] [indiscernible chatter] >> d, g.

foreignation in language] [singing] ♪ >> your position? my friend, hello? [end video clip] john: i am very pleased to have gianfranco rosi at this table for the first time. perhaps you can begin by describing a bit lampedusa, what is it like, this island closer

to tunisia than italy? gianfranco: yes. closer to tunisia then italy. and most of the time out of any maps, so you know, it is a little tiny spot in the middle of the sea, which is mostly known, and more now becoming somehow the reference for the humanitarian crisis. john: has it always been welcoming to refugees? gianfranco: lampedusa has been, for the last 50 years, it has been the getaway of europe, on the border of europe and is a beacon of freedom, which further -- for the last 50 years, or 500,000 people have died -- have landed on lampedusa. and thousands of people have died. they told me just recently 7000 people died. so the mediterranean sea is like a cemetary. and these are people that we know died. john: do you think that there is something special about the island? at one point, one of the characters says, the fishermen

collect things from the sea. gianfranco: when i was there, the first time i went in there, i did not know much about the island. and i was studying, if i was able to make this film, there was a person that kind of took me into the movie and said, you need to tell the story to the world, this tragedy. and when asking what happened, all these years, lampedusa was always embracing people. and he told me something profound, he said the fishermen always welcome anything that comes from the sea. so maybe we should learn to have the soul of a fisherman. soul of a- the fisherman in ourselves. john: it is amazing film, partly because of the mixture between heaven and hell. you have this obvious hell, which you show on the boats, including the dead sometimes. but you also have heaven, which seems heavenly by comparison, this island. you choose deliberately characters who are not well-off, that are poor, the main character is this boy. i am just going to ask you about. and he is not having a particularly happy life, but his life seems idealistic in some ways compared to the people out

on the ocean. gianfranco: of the characters, first they were encounters for me. i went to lampedusa and at first i did not know anything about the island, i did not know the people. and i remember for me it was very important to meet the people that somehow became, i started this journey with. years inne and a half lampedusa. and each of them, when i met them, somehow had an incredible link with the past. with the world. almost like an archetype. and when i met the boy. i knew from the beginning i wanted to have the point of view of a kid in the story, because it would allow the certain freedoms to talk about migrants. but then i realized that also his story, his daily life would take me always beyond lampedusa, you know? everything he does, in this small life, his daily small events on life, he brings it to, my thought to the crisis. is aomehow he film

coming-of-age film. it is the harshness of a boy to grow up and deal with life. through his innerworkings, we discover our difficulties to deal with something we do not know, which is somehow in that case the crisis, the migrants asking for help outside of lampedusa. so anything he does is always like so special and somehow reminding us of something that is there arriving to the island. john: did you choose him at all, because he is not an idealist -- he wanderslic kid, with -- a little bit of a romper, to put it mildly. gianfranco: he is like the woody allen of lampedusa. he is in his own little daily fight, his anxiety, his lazy i -- eye, there is always an

element of you poking something else. that when i met him, i remember he was playing with his slingshot and i was looking at him and asking, how good are you? and he said very good. broom ande a little he aimed at the broom and hit it and he turned to me and said, you need passion in life. and i knew it that moment. john: you do not do question and answer, you always do a fly on the wall view, you show things and do not interrupt. gianfranco: one of my mentors told me, he said, you ask one question and you have one 10 questionsave 10 answers, you must go deeper into things. so for me it is important to let life unfold in front of the camera. [speaking foreign language] john: you let death unfold and it is powerful. language]foreign

[end video clip] john: you let death unfold and it is powerful. gianfranco: there was something extremely painful and dramatic, shooting in the middle of the sea when i encountered that, one of the rescues that the world was participating in.

i spent more than 40 days in that day vessel and they literally had a body arriving and i asked, should i film this or not? and i realized it was a tragedy for the world to see. people escaping from war and hunger. and heet once this man told me, ask him, what made you do this, when you know you might die? he told me, the word might, it is hope. in libya, we will die. but if we cross, we might survive. these peoplefor itis a hope, it is a light,

is a beacon of freedom. we do betray more often, the hope for these people, they are brought into italy and the mainland. john: did you want to intervene at all? in the migration center in places like that, did you want to? gianfranco: i felt a very strong the harshness and the difficulties of filmmaking when i was there. most of the time i was talking to the people to understand the fear of those things and also on the boat. scene,ere was a dramatic very rarely able to put the camera in between me and

them without feeling the obstacle that the camera was creating. but i was able to grab the moment which was important to let people know that beyond the numbers there is a moment, there is somebody looking at you and asking for help. john: in america, a place where immigrants come, the immigrants seen as a good thing, but there is not much sympathy in america in terms of for immigrants. and protested at the airport. gianfranco: i arrived at the airport and people could not arrive anymore. john: these are the same people -- gianfranco: the same people that were in lampedusa. coming out of the tragedy of wara, of things, of the that is there. and it was terrible to come into the states and see the fear in the face of the people. something i never -- john: trying to stop people coming through? gianfranco: they were not able

to arrive in the places they were living. i have many iranian friends in los angeles. lawyers, people in tears. to witness this, they gave me a sense of shock and what was happening. i asked, what happened when america turns its back to history? stops?ppens when america john: why call it "fire at sea." gianfranco: it is the name of a song. a tragedy during the second world war when a plane was firebombed. there was a fire outside where many people died, it was a tragedy. what is fascinating, you hear this song everywhere, it is almost the name of the island. you hear the song, it is always grabbing your attention.

asked, what isi the name of this? it is "fire at sea." they told me the story. the song is, the likeness of it was important because on my way, on lampedusa, you can laugh. ofn: yes there are moments lightness. but the theme is linked to a tragedy. john: you said he did not like taking pictures with a blue sky, you would rather have a stormy sky. gianfranco: it is difficult. for me, every day becomes trying to find the right image and bringing the camera, most of the experience without the camera, i spent three months before we started shooting in lampedusa. because i have to know the people, i have to encounter the

people. that is what is important about my work, creating trust. and when i bring the camera, it brings something else, the transformation. i always, the unknown, i put a camera and something happens that i did not expect. and it becomes an incredible relationship, the camera transforms things. so for me, waiting for the clouds, maybe postponing the day i have to shoot, today this guy -- the sky is blue, i will wait for tomorrow. it is like postponing the day of the shooting because as i said, it is painful for me to put the camera there and change things. it is not about gaining things in a film. john: do you hope that this film will change things for the refugees? gianfranco: i have been asked this so many times and people ask, what do you think this film will bring?

art orry aware that no film can change the course of history, but it will be be distributed in 64 countries and i see the strong affect. and many times people come up to me and said, what can i do? if people come out of the cinema and ask, what can i do, that is an incredible achievement. there is a cry of help from the people sinking in the middle of the sea, help, help. and the guy from the coast guard says, what is your position? it is an important thing, i want to reverse things, people asking what is my position and what can i do? i think i reached two people asking all the time these questions -- and witnessing the tragedy from the past years.

john: it is a very eloquent presentation in that case. gianfranco rosi, thank you for being on the show. gianfranco: it was a pleasure. thank you. ♪

carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. oliver: i am oliver renick. we're coming to you from the inside the magazine's headquarters. carol: all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ carol: we are with the editor-in-chief, megan murphy of "bloomberg busin