Sea Spiders

Luciérnaga de Plata

Thomas Pesquet : Objectif France

From the book by the same name by Ninni Ravazza, "Diario di Tonnara" tells the story of the towns, villages, communities and adventures that dictate the daily lives of the tuna fishermen in Italy.

Sicily, Granitola, 1955. At the first light of dawn, the fishermen set out in their boats for open water, timing the rhythm of their oars to murmured chants. They set their nets in the sea, regulate the cords, organize the boats in a square. The men’s work becomes increasingly harder as the tuna are hoisted onto the boats, wriggling, beating their tails until death arrives and the water is tinged with blood.

The Pullars are the last family using traditional methods to fish for wild Atlantic salmon off the coast of Scotland. When these include killing seals, the salmon’s natural predators, conflict erupts. Animal activist groups Sea Shepherd and Hunt Saboteurs oppose the Pullars at every turn, despite the legality of the fishermen’s actions and the consequences to their livelihood. Challenging preconceptions, this ambiguous doc puts modern environmentalism under the microscope.

With Pete Smith providing dry off-screen commentary, we watch some serious fishing: a marlin caught near Catalina, a hammerhead shark caught then wrestled in a small rowboat near Baja, the largest (721 pounds) great white shark caught to date in California waters, Chinook Indians catching salmon at Celilo Falls in Oregon - each with his designated place on the river where his ancestors stood, and, last, a crew on a boat off Mexico hoisting and hurling tuna using unbarbed hooks (baited only with a feather) as fast as they can as long as the school is there - backbreaking work - but a $25,000 catch.

In the mid 19th century, Yankee whalers taught the sailors on the tiny island of Bequia in the West Indies how to catch whales. The once proud American tradition has been kept alive and cherished by Bequians generation after generation. For the last few decades outside pressures, overt and covert, have conspired against the whale hunters and those who rely on them. The stouthearted whalers simply seek sustenance for their community but also provide something else: identity.

An Blascaod Mór, Great Blasket Island, is an islet off the southwest coast of the Irish mainland. For years, a declining population and treacherous waters had made life there risky. In 1953, the Irish government evacuated the 22 remaining residents of An Blascaod Mór to the nearby village of Dún Chaoin. This documentary examines aspects of the island's history and literary legacy, and features interviews with former islanders.

In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.

The Living Sea celebrates the beauty and power of the ocean as it explores our relationship with this complex and fragile environment. Using beautiful images of unspoiled healthy waters, The Living Sea offers hope for recovery engendered by productive scientific efforts. Oceanographers studying humpback whales, jellyfish, and deep-sea life show us that the more we understand the ocean and its inhabitants, the more we will know how to protect them. The film also highlights the Central Pacific islands of Palau, one of the most spectacular underwater habitats in the world, to show the beauty and potential of a healthy ocean.

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Examines the devastating effect that overfishing has had on the world's fish populations and argues that drastic action must be taken to reverse these trends. Examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.

Surf, le feu sacré

A documentary short on the importance of mopeds to the local population on the Koster Islands on the west coast of Sweden.

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant existence centred around the struggle between man and his hostile but magnificent surroundings. A blend of documentary and fictional narrative, the film captures the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands.

At a 2005 Carnival night, something mysterious happens at Porto Formoso bay, leaving the fishing boats wrecked. Fishermen decide to build bigger boats, but at the small village harbor it is impossible to deck them. They demand the construction of a new harbor, but many inhabitants are opposed due to a Castle ruins that lay there. If to some residents ruins look worthless, for others they are the village soul and future, as a lot of tourists would like to visit them...While the landscape transforms, we follow the Director voice through the story of the last seven years of this community.

The year is 1891. The director of MoDo, Frans Kempe, is about to build the largest and most modern sawmill in Europe and a complete ideal society after his own mind. The place he chooses is Norrbyskär, some skerries in the Baltic Sea outside the cost of Västerbotten in northern Sweden. The experimental society with it's 1500 inhabitants and the large sawmill will live for almost 60 years.

The Work completes the "quadrilogy" of South Seas seen over a twenty-year period. This film, tells the choral story of an island that in the short time of a generation loses its identity.

A black-and-white short film about Heiva, a Tahitian folklore festivity.

Will Cubans be able to safeguard their heritage of pristine Nature and preserved ecological treasures under this new era, as they are facing the combined pressure of money and tourism? What policies can be implemented to maintain the island’s spectacular wilderness?