Awaken

This experimental film manages to capture the relationship between man and nature without using words. We witness the painstaking activity of a fisherman in a Chinese village. Spring has arrived after a long winter, and it’s time to get the fishing boat ready for use. The work looks simple enough—making holes in the ice and scraping away thick layers of snow—but it’s vitally important, literally a matter of survival, to do it right. The monotonous sound of the polar wind, the crunching of snow and the cracking of ice as it's hacked away form a natural, musical accompaniment to the impressive surroundings. The long shots have a meditative effect, while the often shaky footage from a GoPro camera shows the ongoing struggle between man and nature, both on the ice and in the water below. An ode to the resilience and beauty of humanity and the world around us.