
Gegen Wind und Wellen - Auf Fangfahrt mit den deutschen Seelachsfischern
Overview
The job of a deep-sea fisherman is still extremely dangerous today. Waves, storms, physical work and hardly any sleep - the stress levels are high, even though the ships are now ultra-modern. Fishing far out at sea requires experience and luck. The weather can change within minutes and this also applies to fish prices, which vary greatly depending on the catch. It quickly becomes a race against time and the forces of nature.
Top Cast

Klaus-Dieter Klebsch
Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Fritz Flindt
Self - Captain
Tom Sommerfeldt
Self - Sailor
Key Film Crew
Production Stats
You May Also Like
In 1965, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, there was the last operating fleet of sailing work boats in the United States. Forty-odd "Skipjacks" were still used by Maryland watermen to dredge up oysters from the Bay. At that time, the fleet had survived because of a Maryland conservation law which prohibits the use of motor power for oyster dredging. The watermen traditionally marked the opening of each oystering season with a skipjack race which the Maryland State Tourist Board incorporated into its annual "Chesapeake Bay Appreciation Day."
Watermen

This is the planet we still know so little. We call it Earth but less than 1/3 is land, over 2/3 is water and we use that water as a dumping site for our waste and as if it's an inexhaustible "horn of plenty" for humans. Our most important ecosystem is on the verge of collapse unless we act now. At this very moment the main problem with the oceans is that they're getting emptier and emptier. If we don't do anything then we face one of the biggest disasters in history of mankind.
Sea the Truth

A friendly wager on a family fishing trip to Emerald Isle years ago resulted in one boy’s dream come true. That boy, all grown up, turned his dream come true into a career.
Jacob's First Mandolin
A modern geisha travels through Japan trying to find a job as entertainer, and ends up by finding love and a job as ama, a pearl diver.
Violated Paradise

This documentary records the journey undertaken by Jacques Cousteau, his 24-member team, and an NFB film crew to explore the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, one of the world's richest fishing areas. They discover shipwrecks, film icebergs and observe beluga whales, humpback whales and harp seals. The film also includes a fascinating sequence showing Calypso divers freeing a calf whale entrapped in a fishing net.
Cries from the Deep

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Nanook of the North

A documentary about the threat posed to New Zealand's Kaipara Harbour by rapacious commercial fishing and development.
The Kaipara Affair

Two friends, both Indigenous fishermen, are driven to desperation by a dying sea. Their friendship begins to fracture as they take very different paths to provide for their struggling families.
Against the Tide
Louisiana filmmaker, Pat Mire, teams up with veteran filmmaker and cinematographer, Charles Bush, to capture the natural drama of handfishing in this award-winning documentary. Highly visual, the film examines the thrilling regional phenomenon of Cajuns who wade in murky bayou waters to catch huge catfish and turtles by reaching into hollow logs and stumps with their bare hands. Friends and family accompany the handfisherman to the bayou banks for Cajun music, festive cooking, and storytelling, and to witness this increasingly rare tradition. Told from the inside with multiple voices, Mire and Bush explore the chain of events set off by man's attempt to "improve" his environment by dredging bayous in this remarkable study of the relationship between cultural and natural resources.
Anything I Catch
An instructional film profiling the dragnet fishing technique as practiced by Danish sailors.
Danish Seining
Through economic necessity, an Aran Islander is forced to travel to England to work on building sites so that he can earn money to support his family back on the Islands.
Return of the Islander

The Southern Sea Otter was historically abundant along the California coastline until intense hunting pressures reduced their numbers to near-extinction levels. But now the otters are coming back, and with them they bring the potential for drastic change to the modern-day economics and ecology of the Santa Barbara Channel.





