The first one was in 2008 and the films are all related to fishing communities and fishing people around
the world, said organiser Alain le Sann, who also runs French fishing NGO Pêche et Développement.
Last year’s winner was a film from Taiwan, The Lost Sea. We get some good films Germany, Portugal,
Switzerland, the US and India. South America is difficult as we don’t have enough contacts that part of the
world, he said.
There’s a lot of variety, including some films that can be deeply moving, like Hustler, a film from Togo that
addressed the problems of drugs and poverty. The focus is on people, not fish stocks and politics. This are
films about humanity that everyone can enjoy I’m fed up with all this stuff about quotas and overfishing,
he said, and added that French film maker Mathilde Jounot is working on a film project called the Voices of
the Invisible, delving into the stance that some NGOs have taken in their vociferous opposition to fishing,
and the shadowy world of the agendas that are driving this hostility to fishing also addressing the
presentation of fishermen as villains and the half-truths and even outright untruths that are part of the
publicity campaigns.
The contradictions between all this talk of overfishing and the reality are astonishing. Why is there all this
propaganda? Mathilde is working on this with the support of one TV station in Brittany that will show the
film, plus she is crowdfunding it to make this possible and we expect it to be released at the end of the
year, he said, commenting that it will be shown on TV in Brittany, as well as at the festival, hopefully with
an English version also available.
It’s critical, so we are expecting to see some opposition from the NGOs, he said.
We are not against NGOs as a part of civil society. They are a good thing to have and debate is healthy.
But this heavy-duty lobbying is different, especially when there are some big business interests behind the
lobbying, with people in top positions, paid for by those organisations.
The fact that Maria Damanaki can leave her position as fisheries commissioner and then go to the Nature
Conservancy is absolutely scandalous. It was clear with the CFP reform exactly what she had set out to
do which was doing the work of the NGOs while she was commissioner.
He said that what we are seeing with trends around the world for MPAs, effectively paid for by wealthy
organisations, mirrors what has already been seen in the politics of the forestry business.
If you look at the map of Congo, there are protected zones where there are no people. There are mining
areas and there are forestry areas. There’s no room for people, who are expected to live in cities. The
same is happening with the oceans as the NGOs and the multinationals share it out between them. The
result is huge no-take zones, while industry can do what it likes with the rest of the ocean.
For a former teacher with a measured, thoughtful delivery, there’s no mistaking the quiet anger in his
voice as he returns to the subject of the Pêcheurs du Monde film festival.
It’s four days of films 17th-20th of March, with the jury drawn from fishing and film people, plus there’s a
young jury of school age people as well. It takes place in a secondary school. We’re hoping to be able to
bring fishermen from Africa to this film festival and we have people from all over France and from many
other countries who attend, he said.
Film Festival
At last year’s Pêcheurs du Monde festival the Chandrika Sharma special prize went to Wawata-Topu, the
Mermaids of Timor-Leste, a prize-winning documentary about the lives of four generations of fisherwome
who dive for their catches on the island of Atauro in East Timor. The Festival Award in the short film
category awarded by the young jury went to Sounds of the Soul, a film about the lives of fishermen and
fish merchants around Lake Baikal in Russia,while the young jury gave it feature film award to Hustlers,
depicting life in the slums of the Port of Lomé in Benin.
The festival jury last year awarded Frédérique Odye’s film Les Veilleuses de Chagrin, tracing the lives of
the wives of Breton fishermen, the short film award, while the prize for the best feature film went to Chun-
Hsiu Hung for his film The Lost Sea, a Taiwanese film examining the relics of the cold war and the
development of disputed coastlines on the island of Kinmen, and the effects on local fishing communities.
2015 – Fishing News International