To Speak on Behalf of the Living

A short film aiming to understand the last remaining fishermen of the Northern European rivers and wetlands as custodians of these ecosystems and their more-than-human inhabitants.

Fishermen of the German river Elbe, the narrow inlet Schlei and the Dutch wetlands areas Weerribben Wieden and Biesbosch speak about their way of living, their relations to these bodies of water, their observations of decades of ecological changes and how their multigenerational embodied knowledge of the area is entangled with the wellbeing of the local ecosystems and its beings. They discuss the tension between caring, fishing, and eating; their reciprocal relationship and how some current water management systems and natural conservation methods are in contradiction with their ways of being.