Pablo Alvarez Mesa & Fernando Lopez Escriva
Canada, Colombia | 2017 | 22 min
World premiere
Language : Spanish
Subtitles : English, French
Built around a day of fishing, from the departure in the middle of the night until the nets are brought out of the water full of fish, La pesca is structured on the rocky slopes of a small Colombian cove. Fishing is, above all, the waiting of a group of men. Here it is transposed with all the sensory resources of film: the camera positioned as close as possible to the water and the vibrations of the surface of the sea, the sound recording between backwash and lapping at the prow of the boat, the editing constructed between the howl of the wind and the gestures of the men who weave nets or wear out their attention on the hypnotic rhythms of a game of dominos. Fishing is time spent waiting for fish. The subtle balance between the close-ups that underpin the solitary interiority of this waiting and the wider shots where we observe details within the group: a younger fisherman who yawns in the background or a kitten, on the edge of the frame, who is eyeing the leftovers… So we surprise ourselves when we, too, start to look out for the signs announcing the shoal of barracudas.
Madeline Robert
