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30 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 MAY 2026 FEATURE Inside Zafzifa: A portrait JADE BEZZINA jbezzina@mediatoday.com.mt THE first thing you notice in Żafżifa is the noise. Drilling, engines, traffic and construc- tion echo constantly throughout Buġibba, turning the town into a place that feels permanently un- finished, caught between what it was and what it is becoming. That sense of transition sits at the centre of Peter Sant's latest feature film, which uses Buġibba not simply as a backdrop, but as a portrait of a Malta suspended in an in-between moment of change. Although Sant has only lived permanently in Malta for the past two years, he has spent dec- ades returning regularly to the island, particularly St Paul's Bay and Buġibba. Watching the area change over time gave him a dif- ferent perspective on its trans- formation. "These are changes that I saw over a long period of time," he explains. "From the perspective of actually not being here per- manently, you see the change in a better light, so to speak." Żafżifa does not present itself as a direct critique of develop- ment. Instead, Sant set to "cap- ture a certain moment in time," that he describes as "kind of like an in-between moment. It's like it was what it was, and it's be- coming something else. And I'm interested in that moment of be- coming." That sense of transition is what visually shapes Żafżifa, which is shot on 16mm film, and avoids a polished digital look. He ex- plains that the decision to shoot on 16mm was not only an aes- thetic preference but also some- thing he felt naturally comforta- ble with, having worked with the format since leaving school. He adds that there was a con- ceptual motivation behind the choice as well, noting that be- cause the story follows the main character, Dimitrios, returning after a seven-year absence, the format helped convey a sense of nostalgia. "If you're going to talk about the idea of progress and what comes next," he says, "then you also have to balance that out with the reverse." He adds: "I think the 16mm lends a certain element of nostalgia that ties in with the whole thing themati- cally." Sant also says the film's visual style was shaped by the Med- iterranean environment itself, particularly the region's distinc- tive blue light, which is a recur- ring visual motif throughout the film. "That blue is something that I don't think I'd manage to even hide if I wanted to. It's there in every shot. It's almost like what they use in films sometimes— those blue screens. It's just a flat blue, you know, which I love," he explains. Sant notes that the production avoided heavy visual manipula- tion, instead using natural light and working with "what was in front of us in the best way pos- sible." Sant also describes the film as intended for "an active audi- ence", asking viewers to engage rather than passively follow. Consequently, the film often features moments where char- acters leave a space which the camera stays to linger on. "I think you need those moments to breathe," he says. This approach extends to sound. Conversations continue after characters move on, am- bient noise overtakes dialogue, and voices become detached from bodies. He says this gradu- al separation builds throughout the film and reflects the emo- tional distance between the two main characters. This separation between sound and image peaks in the final se- quence, where voiceovers speak in different languages. Sant de- scribes them as something ab- stract. "So, these two things that were meant to be together, but cannot—a bit like the characters themselves," he continues. Sound is treated as a core el- ement of the film. Machinery, engines, and traffic form a sec- ond soundtrack, as important as the score. Sant recorded thou- sands of hours of ambient sound across Buġibba and nearby are- as. These recordings were later processed manually using reel- to-reel tape to match the film's analogue texture. The film also focuses on mi- grant workers, who appear throughout not as background figures, but as part of the real- ity of contemporary Buġibba. Sant says that if the film aimed to capture a snapshot of the area as it exists today, their presence could not be ignored. "If I'm creating a snapshot of contemporary Buġibba, it would be wrong to eliminate certain aspects," he explains. "Without them, the progress would never be there." He describes migrant workers as "the ruins of progress", argu- ing that Malta's idea of progress depends on their labour. Their presence in the film also reflects the island's changing demo- graphics and wider social reality, he says. Viewing Malta through Dimi- trios' eyes, a returning outsider Director Peter Sant