The Colombian short film La Pesca by Pablo Alvarez Mesa and Fernando Lopez Escriva and the Mexican feature Los ojos del mar / The Gaze of the Sea by Jose Álvarez were awarded at the 2017 edition of the Visions du Reél festival in Nyon, Switzerland, an international film festival dedicated entirely to non-fiction cinema. La Pesca received the award for Best Short Film with a cash prize of about $5,000, while The Gaze of the Sea was the winner of the 'Interreligious Award,' presented to a film in the International Competition that sheds light on existential, social or spiritual questions as well as human values.
Built around a day of fishing, from the departure in the middle of the night until the nets are brought out of the water full of fish, La Pesca is structured on the rocky slopes of a small Colombian cove. Fishing is, above all, the waiting of a group of men.
The Gaze of the Sea follows Hortencia, a woman native of Tuxpan with a troubling past, begins a journey by sea and land to recover the testimonies and memories of a fishing boat’s crew, shipwrecked five years before in the seas of Veracruz. Little by little, the journey becomes a sort of introspection about the meaning of life and death, constructed by the most profound mythologies and desires of the people she comes across with.
The 2017 edition of the Visions du Reél, the Nyon International Film Festival, took place April 13-21 in Switzerland.
