Rimini, July 18, 2026 – Watching the tragedy on TV gave her chills. “I remember every moment of that evening, as if it were yesterday… These are things you carry inside your whole life.” That January 13, 2012, Vanessa Brolli from Misano was aboard the Costa Concordia with her family when the ship sank off the island of Giglio. The disaster claimed the lives of 32 people: among them the Rimini residents Williams Arlotti and his daughter, little Dayana, only 5 years old. A tragedy now recounted in Netflix’s new docufilm, Costa Concordia – Nightmare at Sea, through the voices of some survivors and live footage of those terrible moments. “I watched the documentary in one go and I was moved – admits Brolli – The documentary is touching and faithful. It manages to retrace the story with many details, even if it cannot be exhaustive since it lasts only an hour and a half.”
Among the survivors interviewed in the docufilm “there are people I know well and with whom I have stayed in contact. Like Stefania (Vincenzi) who lost her mother on the Concordia. We both had participated in the podcast by Pablo Trincia.”
Vanessa was only 14 years old at the time of the disaster. She was on a cruise with her siblings Omar and Federica, her parents, and other relatives to celebrate her grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. “There were 14 of us. It was supposed to be a celebratory trip: it turned into a nightmare.” Vanessa was saved thanks to her father: “He lifted me and my mother and put us on a lifeboat. He was among the last to leave the ship.”
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When she thinks back to those moments, “the first image that comes to mind is the terror on board after the first blackout. I will never forget the screams, the panic of the people. And then the look of my parents, who were trying to understand what was happening and were only thinking about how to save all of us.” A nightmare that Vanessa relived a few days ago watching the Netflix docufilm. “I watched it with emotion… Because the Concordia tragedy will accompany me my whole life.”
