Origin of author: Italy. Place of recording: Italy. Duration: 23 minutes
BRONZE. Award for the third best documentary
A ton of abandoned nets have been removed from the Gulf of Cefalù. This is the Euridice Mission. The project was born from the idea of Andrea and Marco Spinelli, two Sicilian brothers (born in Caltanissetta), lovers of the sea.
Marco: a documentary filmmaker with a special focus on the environment, especially the protection of marine ecosystems.
Andrea: marine biologist at the Oceanográfico of Valencia (Spain), specialised in the conservation of marine environments, biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea and the ecology of endangered marine species.
For about five years, abandoned fishing nets have been lying on the bottom of the most important shoal in the Gulf of Cefalù (Sicily). These nets have continued to fish, killing marine animals and smothering and desertifying the area. As a result, the coral fauna has been visibly reduced, and the local fish fauna has been drastically reduced.
The Spinelli brothers have launched a fundraiser to invest the proceeds in net recovery, disposal, scientific research equipment, surface support and video equipment that documented the entire mission.
Every year 640,000 tonnes of fishing nets are abandoned in the oceans (according to annual reports by the United Nations Environment Programme; UNEP) and the figures are rising. Thousands of square metres of abandoned fishing nets are scattered over ever larger areas of our seabed, causing an increasing form of desertification of marine ecosystems. In the Mediterranean, ghost nets are covering larger and larger areas of underwater walls or banks, causing a progressive destruction of all forms of life, especially coral and fish fauna.
The making of this documentary could be the start of an international campaign to recover the nets abandoned in our oceans. With the creation and dissemination of a documentary film (the result of our project) we hope to prevent the abandonment of nets in the seas and raise awareness of this serious "global" problem. What the film wants to convey is a testimony of the reality, opening a ray of hope through the recovery and conservation of an ecosystem that is now collapsing, raising people's awareness to have respect for the sea, but above all providing information about a problem that is still underestimated.