OFICIAL COMPETITION
COMPETITION I
TWILIGHT DREAM
Amanda Cots & Angel Suárez
Country: Spain (Valencia)
Year: 2022
Duration: 15 min.
Original language: Spanish (no dialogue)
Every early morning, Angel and Adel head out to sea aboard the “Dos Angeles”. They scour the seabed in the hope of a good catch. The nets go up and down: they are cast, retrieved, cleaned and repaired with patience. But the days when the sea was generous and the resources abundant are long gone. Now it is difficult to return to port with cargo in the hold. And there are fewer and fewer shipmates left.
REQUIEM FOR A WHALE
Ido Weisman
Country: Israel
Year: 2022
Duration: 15 min.
Original language: Hebrew (subtitles in Galician)
On a stormy night in early 2021, a whale’s body washed ashore at Nitzanim beach in Israel. Over the documentation of the encounter between people and the carcass, we hear the voices of several witnesses who were present at the rare occurrence. From the fabric of responses, a collective experience shines, regarding the dialogue between life and death.
CONFINE LIQUIDO
Andrea Scimone
Country: Italy
Year: 2022
Duration: 31 min.
Original language: Italian (subtitles in Galician)
On the Sicilian shore of the Strait of Messina, the sea takes over men’s lives. Michele, Antonio and Pippo wait for the right sea current, the right season. A millennial waiting that chains them up with the liquid body their lives sail on.
COMPETITION II
SQUID FLEET
Ed Ou & Will N. Miller
Country: USA
Year: 2023
Duration: 12 min.
Original language: Chinese (subtitles in Galician)
Squid fishing on the high seas is one of the practices most called out by protectionist groups around the world, and the exploitation of its workers is repeatedly denounced by human rights organisations. This visually powerful film brings us dazzling images of a unique and terrible world: that of the fishing vessel, thousands of kilometres from home.
L'EFFORT DES HOMMES
Jean-Gabriel Périot
Country: France
Year: 2022
Duration: 12 min.
Original language: French (subtitles in Galician)
Whaling has been around for centuries. It seems the fruit of man’s violence, destroying himself by destroying nature. Accompanying the rise of capitalism, the practice survives today, reflecting humans’ eternal destructiveness of nature and the creatures unable to resist them.
PIBLOKTO
Anastasia Shubina & Timofey Glinin
Country: Russia / USA
Year: 2023
Duration: 37 min.
Original language: Russian (subtitles in Galician)
On the Arctic Ocean coast live a people cut off from the world: the Chukchi. Their life revolves around hunting walruses and whales and protecting villages from bears coming from the tundra. Marine animals become the primary source of food for the people, animal leftovers are used to feed arctic foxes on a fur farm, while human cemeteries become targets for bears. It appears that all the inhabitants of this region are involved in the cycle of food and death.
COMPETITION III
BLOOM
Helena Girón & Samuel Delgado
Country: Spain (Canarias / Galicia)
Year: 2023
Duration: 18 min.
Original language: Spanish (subtitles in English)
San Borondón is a mythical island that appears and disappears. Throughout history, it has been placed near the Canary Islands on maps. After centuries of oblivion, it has finally been found. At 4,500 metres under the Atlantic Ocean, the Tropic was an ancient island which emerged 120 million years ago, whose images and samples of its structure reach us thanks to a submersible ROV. Its hi-tech tweezers touch and manipulate its crust, always functioning under the Western desire to explore and classify unknown and coveted territories.
MISSION MICROBIOME
Giulia Grossmann
Country: France
Year: 2023
Duration: 19 min.
Original language: English, French (subtitles in Galician)
We embark on a scientific voyage in the company of an international team of researchers dedicated to the study of plankton. Off the coast of Senegal, the research intertwines with the reality of the fishermen’s pirogues that have come to exchange supplies with the scientific vessel, creating a context where science and everyday life coexist, oscillating between the immensity of maritime views and the fascinating microscopic world.
MMRRSSMM...XEOSÓNICA #1 ATLÁNTICO
Andrés Mahía
Country: Spain (Galicia)
Year: 2022
Duration: 22 min.
Original language: Galician (no dialogue)
The ocean isn’t just the habitat of fish, cetaceans, seaweed and other living creatures. It is the livelihood of many villages and cities, a trade route, a space for leisure, a source of wealth and also of tragedy. The Atlantic determines us as Galicians, but it also has its identity and its sounds. MMRRSSMM… is an exploration of the ocean’s noises, of those we perceive, of those we don’t perceive and of those we don’t know we perceive. An approach towards sound from an artistic point of view and an experimental perspective.
COMPETITION IV
SHIRAMPARI: HERENCIAS DEL RÍO
Lucía Flórez
Country: Spain / Peru / USA
Year: 2022
Duration: 16 min.
Original language: Ashéninka (subtitles in Galician)
In one of the most remote places in the Peruvian Amazon, an Ashéninka boy must overcome his fears and catch a giant catfish using only a hook to start his journey as an adult.
DAUGHTER OF THE SEA
Nicole Gormley & Nancy Kwon
Country: USA / South Korea
Year: 2023
Duration: 18 min.
Original language: Korean (subtitles in Galician)
Jaeyoun Kim decides to go back to the island of Jeju and join the haenyeo, the famed “women of the sea.” For centuries, these free divers and fisherwomen—some in their 80s—have dived more than 30 feet to gather seafood for their families and villages. Following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, Jaeyoun learns what it means to become a haenyeo.
HAULOUT
Evgenia Arbugaeva & Maxim Arbugaev
Country: UK / Russia
Year: 2022
Duration: 25 min.
Original language: Russian (subtitles in Galician)
On a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic, in a wind-battered hut, a lonely man waits to witness an ancient gathering. But warming seas and rising temperatures bring an unexpected change, and he soon finds himself overwhelmed.
COMPETITION V
RIACHEROS
José Antonio Ortiz Sabido
Country: Spain (Andalusia)
Year: 2022
Duration: 10 min.
Original language: Spanish (subtitles in Galician)
In 2004, in the estuary of the Guadalquivir River, the Public Administration drew a line on a map that divided its waters. To the west, ‘maritime waters’, to the east, ‘inland waters’… In Andalusia, there is no legal designation for ‘professional fishermen of inland waters.’ As a result, hundreds of fishermen and shellfish farmers have found themselves in a legal grey area, despite the fact that the products they catch are highly valued locally.
ARALKUM
Daniel Asadi Faezi & Mila Zhluktenko
Country: Germany / Uzbekistan
Year: 2022
Duration: 13 min.
Original language: Karakalpak (subtitles in Galician)
A desert landscape, as if from another planet. A few lonely, rusty shipwrecks. Low desert scrub grows around them to hold the sand together during the merciless storms. Aralkum, the Aral Desert, is the bare seabed, the last thing left of the Aral Sea. By weaving together different cinematic textures, the short film re-imagines the dried-up Aral Sea, allowing an old fisherman to set sail one last time.
HAPPY LIFE
Galina Leontieva
Country: Germany / Russia
Year: 2023
Duration: 39 min.
Original language: Russian (subtitles in Galician)
Felix and Antonina are a family of Karelian fishermen. In the early 2000s, Felix was injured and almost stopped walking. Antonina finds the strength to support her husband and continues to run the household. The film is about devotion, love, and a difficult life in a remote village.
OFFICIAL JURY
SEVERIANO CASALDERREY
He is a musician, teacher, and programmer with a degree in Art History. He works as a Senior Piano Teacher and has been a member of the Academia Galega do Audiovisual since 2012. Additionally, he is an author of several literary works on cinematography and a contributor to specialised film magazines. His notable achievements include an extensive background in film programming at various festivals, including FICBUEU, GFFF, Intersección, Cinema Miúdo, and Imaxinaria.
ANA ESTÉVEZ
Museologist and historian. She holds a degree in Geography and History and works at the Museo do Pobo Galego, where she is responsible for the Education and Cultural Action area. Since 2015, she has directed the film festival promoted by this entity, the Mostra Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico (MICE). She is vice-president of Proxecta, Coordinadora Galega de Festivais de Cinema.
ÁLVARO GAGO
Film director and editor. He holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication and has gained experience in the worlds of theatre and film in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain. He has received Goya Award nominations for several of his works and achieved recognition with the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival and the Jury Prize for Best Fiction Short Film at the Cans Festival for his short film Matria.