Fisherman Jan Geertsema is determined: 'I think that my way, back to square one, old-style fishing, is the only possibility to keep anything alive in the sea.' His way, that is: small-scale fishing, without the gratuitous use of horsepower, and only for large, full-grown animals. So, Geertsema and his reticent colleague Warry float around in a rubber dinghy on shallow water, scanning the surface and waiting for the fish to arrive. With a healthy respect for his prey: 'They're keeping an eye on us.' Zwaanswijk and Kortbeek call attention to the globally declining fish stocks, but the film particularly revolves around the striking character Geertsema. At one point, he traded his Environmentology study for a life as a fisherman, and never looked back. He was the first fisherman allowed to use the Waddengoud sustainability certificate. 'Fishing is like looking for a number of needles in a haystack,' he explains. 'But we crawl around the haystack and so do the needles. So it's quite a challenge.'
Credits
Set geluid
Montage
Production company
NFF Archive
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