Fratello mare

While the havoc that consumerist tourism wreaks on Polynesia's former "last paradise" rages, old Atai expresses his indignant protest fuelled by nostalgia for what is now only a memory. He recalls his own birth, childhood («I sucked milk and sea spray: that's how the sea became my brother»), and adolescence up to the day his father lost his life fishing for mother-of-pearl. Parading on the screen, seen and narrated by Atai, are the environment, customs, legends, mythology, and the daily relationship with the friend-enemy sea. Atai makes us relive his initiation into the art of sailing and fishing, his prudence and courage in the face of the shark and the moray eel. Meanwhile, the whites arrive to sell useless things and buy coral and mother-of-pearl and turn the island into a perpetual amusement park.

First Prize Cartaghena International Sea Festival.