a A strange-looking woman in a wetsuit leans out on a gravel beach in a remote corner of Iceland. Her mouth is swollen and abnormally wide, her hands are webbed, and she wears a huge black diving mask and her flippers. She suddenly stopped her movements and lay breathless and still, her arms and legs spread at a strange angle on the pebbles.
But as the camera slowly zooms in on her body and actor Marianne Faithfull’s voice begins narrating, we learn that the webbed woman is not a woman after all. she is a fish
This scene is from Wild Summon, The 14-minute film, which combines animation and live-action underwater photography, premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and has since won multiple awards. It was nominated for the festival’s Palme d’Or for best short film before being shortlisted for an Oscar, and now it is Aiming for a British Academy Award on sunday.
A female wild salmon is returning her body to the river where she was born “as a final act of resilience”. “Thousands of eggs are hidden in the pebbles near the decaying body,” Faithfull says in his book. Her unique raspy voice. Under the water, human foetuses bob up and down inside small red sacs. All wearing black diving masks.
“We call it natural history fantasy,” says Saul Freed, a Bristol-based filmmaker who made the film with his wife, fellow filmmaker Carni Arieli. The couple wrote, directed, shot, CGI-animated and produced Wild Summon with the help of their 14-year-old son Yuri, who served as the main drone operator and aerial cinematographer during the shoot in Iceland. Ta.
“If you watch this movie without sound, it might seem like some kind of science fiction movie about underwater creatures. If you do the opposite – if you just listen to the voiceover – then it†™sa straight natural history documentary,†says Freed.
As the title “Wild Summon” suggests, the film follows a wild female salmon as she migrates from a freshwater river to the open ocean, and then returns all the way back in an incredible feat of physical endurance. This is a movie about the fight for survival. to her birthplace to give birth to her child.
“When we pitched the idea to the British Film Institute for funding, we came and said, ‘We’re going to be fish,'” Arieli says. “We wanted to not only tell this eco story, but embody it.â€
Nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction, and the Atlantic salmon is currently classified as near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. In December, new evidence revealed that the species’ global population has fallen by 23% since 2006.
The salmon just jumped out of the water and flew into the air. It was a great moment.
The couple hope this innovative way of telling the environmental story will appeal to new generations. “We’re big fans.” [David] Attenborough’s genre, but that’s his genre and he did it. “So how do we move forward and build on that?” Arieli asks.
To ensure accuracy, it was important to the couple to shoot the backdrop of the film in the real locations in Iceland where salmon swim. I took him to what he calls a “family road trip photo event.”
“For us, there was never any question that we’d have to be in the river,†he says. “We wanted to go and experience it. And for me personally, because I was the one in the freezing water, it was really physical.â€
While trying to keep the camera steady, he realized very intuitively how powerful the river was. “You cannot stand still under its power.”
On the last day of filming, we sat next to a waterfall, looking for empty water to film in so we could add the CGI “salmon woman” later. The animated characters were composited with footage shot in Iceland. “They suddenly encountered a real-life giant salmon. “I swear to God it was my size,†says Freed. “It just jumped out of the water and flew into the air. It was an amazing moment.”
Son Yuri, a passionate wildlife photographer, is currently studying film at university, while Theo is determined to sing to whales when he grows up. “What bigger gift can you give the next generation than a love of nature?†says Arieli. “Because if you love nature, you want to protect it.”
