26′, directed by Jean-Pierre Carlon.
Broadcast on Odyssey, Odisea, Discovery Channel Germany, Australia…
Towards the end of his life, Karshi takes a fearful look at the future of the ocean. Is the traditional fishing that has always fed him destined to disappear in favor of an industrial fishing that will lead to the rarefaction of the resource?
Karshi will soon be sixty-five years old, but his face chiselled by the long days spent at sea under the sun and the sea spray gives him the appearance of an old man…
He is living his last sea outings on board an oruva, one of these sailing catamarans that have been sailing in the bay of Negombo since the dawn of time… And after all, maybe it’s just as well, because everything is changing much too fast for him…
He thought that nothing would ever upset the traditions and yet… for the past few years, even the ocean is not the same…
“The wooden oruvas you see today are certainly the last ones that will ever be built here… Plastic is replacing wood everywhere already, and the good old coconut fiber nets, the young people don’t even want to hear about them anymore. They don’t even want to bother making them… ”
Plastic oruvas…! They don’t take water but they are very expensive… Soon, motor boats will have definitely replaced them… But the fish will run out and they won’t even be able to afford gasoline…
Here, the sea had always offered its wealth to men… This is what pushed them to come so numerous to agglutinate near the coasts… But today, with the modernization of the methods of fishing and all these people that it is necessary to feed, soon, there will be no more fish…
The ocean is not inexhaustible… He knows it well, Karshi, that the sea will not be able to feed his children soon…
Nevertheless, night after night, he can’t help but come to contemplate it and address his prayers to it…
And if they were finally listened to, then maybe… maybe tomorrow would be another day, and fishing would finally be miraculous…