Souffle bleu
( Hálito Azul )

Rodrigo Areias, Eduardo Brito
2018 - 78 min - Vidéo Full HD - Couleur - Portugal, Finlande, France

English summary
The film started with the idea to adapt to screen "The Fishermen", a documentary book by the Portuguese writer Raul Brandao, first published in 1923. In the book, the life of fishermen is described with utmost detail, while the dramatic changes in the fishermen lives and culture are predicted and announced for a near future.
There was a location scout throughout the Portuguese coast from North to South. Visiting fishermen villages, going to sea, eating and drinking with the fishermen of the Minho, Aveiro and Algarve regions. Many coincidental circumstances between the writings and today’s reality were still there, and thus became extremely important on the definition of the approach of the documentary.
After a location scout trip to the Azores Islands, we realized that the extreme isolation, the traditional fishing techniques, and the scarcity of fish, are much stronger there rather than in Portuguese mainland. Therefore, we decided to focus on the fishing communities of the Azores: we have visited the fishing communities, the traditional ports, and interviewed local authorities, scientists and fishing workers, discovering a new fishing program to be implemented in the region – an attempt to save the Azorean fish banks.
Since 2016, a new program started by encouraging local fishermen to be in control of their fish exploitation; in control of the fishing process, from beginning to the end, including fish transformation (in conserves, for example) and the selling. But also to create brands – allowing the appraisal of the product but at the same time, forcing the fishermen to protect fish species from overexploiting.
My main goal is to evoke a magnificent book, while confronting it with nowadays reality. Using poetry to counterbalance reality. Using the wide shots of beautiful landscapes and tradition as a counter point the close-us of real faces, of poverty and of a whole culture that stands in it’s last days of existence. So, in the first place, I will search for true stories that are similar or related with those written by Raul Brandao.
Starting from this parallelism, we will create a divergence between then and now, until we reach the most present dilemmas. And then the book is no more than a presence of the poetry of the film. A ghost of words in a harsh reality, made of flesh and bones, a body of work that will be overpassed by reality - nowadays the reality of the extreme poverty of the Azorean Islands: the extreme west of Europe, yet the poorest region of all Europe and at the same time of an extreme natural beauty.
By decreasing in 90% from the previous year, European Union’s new fishing quotas took all the fishermen by surprise: due to this, it is possible to say that illegal fishing will be an essential mean of survival for the communities. I want to be part of this confront that will inevitably happen between the poor fishing communities, political strategies, international relation and, at the end, the attempts of saving the seas biodiversity. (Rodrigo Areias)