This Oscar-nominated documentary tells the unlikely story of how the nile perch, a fish, was inserted in Lake Victoria a few decades ago and how it subsequently ruined the ecological balance, affecting the entire economy of Tanzania. Now, the starving population makes a living fishing the nile perch in large quantities for foreign companies that keep sending jet after jet to carry tons of filets to Europe and Japan. The people of Tanzania have to settle for chum… and the weapons that are smuggled into the country on some of the jets. The filmmakers grabbed a video camera and interviewed everybody concerned and out of the disorganized structure grows a very disturbing portrayal of modern-day exploitation, a problem that isnāt as easily solved as one might think.
2005-France-Austria-Belgium. 107 min. Color. Produced byĀ Barbara Albert, Martin Gschlacht, Edouard Mauriat, Hubert Sauper, Antonin Svoboda, Hubert Toint. Written andĀ directed byĀ Hubert Sauper.
European Film Awards: Best Documentary.
Last word: “Out of a million people, what do you see? This is the biggest question in making movies. Nothing is sufficient. There is always 99 percent of the picture missing. But I think the most important function of these kinds of films is to [create a] snowball. One person cannot provide all the solutions. We have to share all these questions first.” (Sauper, Film Comment)
