Pulitzer Center Update April 10, 2024
D.C. Environmental Film Festival Showcases Grantees’ Short Films on Ocean Issues
Trade expansion and climate change have made it possible for the Indo-Pacific crab and other species...
On March 26, 2024, the Pulitzer Center screened five short films by grantees in front of a full house at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in downtown Washington, D.C. Since 2010, the Pulitzer Center has collaborated with the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital (DCEFF), a 10-day showcase of environmental filmmaking with screenings around the city.
“All these films are related: this is an economic problem, and it’s related to what we eat,” Pulitzer Center grantee Paola Martínez Gutiérrez said. “I think we all should be involved in getting to know more about this and how things get done. It’s not something that just happens at sea, it’s always coming to our plates when we eat.”
This year’s screening, “Deep Dives: Squid Fleets, Fisherfolk, and the Future of Our Oceans,” illustrated how healthy oceans are vital to addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Life within the ocean produces half the oxygen we breathe, and more than 3 billion people—mainly in the Global South—rely on fish as the primary source of protein in their diet. Fisheries, aquaculture, and post-harvest work provide employment and income for a significant percentage of the world’s population.
The lineup of films shed light on threats still at large, as well as community efforts to protect our oceans. After the screening, journalists Guia Baggi, Paola Martínez Gutiérrez, Trevor Hughes, and Ed Ou discussed reporting from international waters and coastal fishing ships that supply the majority of the world’s seafood.
“Journalists can play a crucial role in raising awareness about the complex web of challenges facing the ocean and fisheries,” Steve Sapienza, senior editor, U.S. News Partnerships at the Pulitzer Center, said as he introduced the films. “And yet, ocean reporting is perhaps one of the more challenging beats in journalism. It can be expensive, it happens over vast distances and open water, and following the story can involve serious risk for the reporters and their subjects.”
In order, the films screened were: Squid Fleet: The Brutal Lives of China's Industrial Fishermen, Closed Season: The Illegal Supply Chain Behind the Baby Octopus Delicacy, Catch Me If You Can, Fishing the Four Corners of the United States To See Impacts of Climate Change, and The Fishermen Snared in the Scarborough Shoal Dispute.
Sapienza and audience members then asked questions about the inspiration for and processes of the journalists’ and filmmakers’ reporting.
“These stories really got their genesis because I was at Costco, and I was shocked at the price of Dungeness crab … I thought [it] was really cheap,” Hughes said. “And it turns out, in many of the cases, the fisherman I talked to, they’re dealing with foreign competition … So we wanted to show what this American industry really looked like in this day and age.”
The journalists reported on both legal and illegal fishing practices in an industry that is difficult to regulate, and even more difficult for consumers to understand. Martínez Gutiérrez shared that her team was surprised by the willingness of fishermen to speak to them; they had a harder time gaining access to restaurants that knowingly, or unknowingly, purchased the illegal seafood.
“[Restaurants] just go to the biggest market, like the one we showed in Mexico City, that distributes different kinds of fish and octopi to other parts of the state, so you don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Martínez Gutiérrez said. “It’s hard for consumers to know if the octopus they’re eating is illegal or not.”
“We went restaurant to restaurant and ate quite a lot of shrimp trying to find these Key West Pink [shrimp], right next to the port, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know where these shrimp are from. They’re from Alabama, maybe they're from Texas.’ They were basically rotting on the dock a mile away, but not being purchased,” Hughes said.
Ou spoke on the decision to combine real footage with a fictionalized narrative based on in-depth investigative reporting. He acknowledged the complexity of this decision as a journalist, while explaining that when reporting on places like China, there is a “fine balance” and a “responsibility to the people who open up to us.”
“When you report on issues like this—especially human rights abuses and labor—it's quite complicated, because people don't want to talk to you,” Ou said. “And if they do, what they always say is, ‘Don't show the name of the ship, don't show our faces.’ So we would get all of these different flecks of reporting … We decided to take the combination of these narratives, and fictionalize it … We could show the emotions and show what that felt like, while maintaining anonymity and letting people's voices speak to a wider [issue].”
An audience member asked the panelists how they built trust with their sources. Panelists shared reporting advice like honesty about reporting objectives, being genuine, making eye contact, and remembering you are talking to people first.
“In the back of my head, I’m thinking, this particular ship is responsible for a lot of documented human rights abuses that we need to confront them with,” Ou said. “But at the same time, too, the individuals in this are a part of this wider system that may or may not be their specific fault. If you just see people as people first, then you can build that trust to engage with them, to ask the tougher questions. And that’s true out at sea—that’s really hard—but that’s also true back on land, when you’re doing any story. And that’s just the nature of what we do as journalists.”
All the panelists commented on the element of camaraderie at sea, and how that shaped the reporting process. Each had stories about fishers' generosity, from offering them food to providing transport, and how the element of the unknown builds communities and shapes traditions at sea.
“The people on these ships are everyday citizens doing a job. Like with everything reporting on the oceans, there is this camaraderie with everyone out at sea,” Ou said. “Even though the relationship might be perceived as antagonistic … there is still this idea that we're in the middle of nowhere, we are all that we have, and we have to help each other. And so I think that's where it gets both complicated and really beautiful at the same time.”
Baggi emphasized the intersection of fishery management and conservation, explaining how regulations impact fishers’ interests, markets, biodiversity, and conversation. Planning and research is vital as they work to understand the complicated relationship between marine life species, especially in warming waters.
“It’s very interesting, especially because it comes from the fishers themselves,” Baggi said. “We saw a way that fishers can pave the way to become stewards for a more healthy ocean.”
All films screened illuminated a complex piece of the fishing industry, which has ecological impacts and feeds and funds communities.
The films featured at this showing were sponsored by grants from the Pulitzer Center's Connected Coastlines initiative. Read more reporting on oceans issues and about the Ocean Reporting Network.
Watch the reel of films and Q&A with the panelists.
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