GALO: In regards to some of the close-up scenes, in which there are quite a few focused on the fisherman on the boat. Were you trying to fixate on the emotions?

Hetty Naaijkens-Retel Helmrich: Yes, of course. At first, it was very hard to get access to these people because they didn’t talk with each other; they were only joking and had their own kind of humor. But Leonard is always with his camera, very close. With single shot cinema it is also possible to get close. You have to understand that this is a Dutch community but it’s not a common community. They live in a close relationship with the church.

Leonard: Yeah, I think your reactions should be felt through the emotions, because then you will remember these things. Effects are only important when they’re connected with the emotions. That’s why I always go for the emotion, to feel the effects. So I try to find people who carry this emotion. One problem that we had, especially during the first trip I made, these people were told by the ship company that there was a camera on board and to behave, and that was really terrible.

Hetty: They had rules in advance that made it very, very difficult…

Leonard: …to get close to them. And only during the last trip they had the kids coming up and they were more open to their children, so I could use that as an opening to get more of their emotions.

Hetty: Yes, that was very good that the kids came. We thought three trips were enough, but when we heard that the children would go on this trip, Leonard decided to go by himself, with no other film crew members. He did the trip alone with those children and the ship crew.

GALO: And how long did filming take?

Hetty: Four trips. The last one was very long; it was 17 days or something…

Leonard: Yeah, it was more than two weeks, and the first trips were shorter, they were about eight days. The third trip, I was not there, but we had an assistant who was there, who filmed some stock shots.

Hetty: It was a very hard time [chuckles] because Leonard got seasick during the beginning.

Leonard: So it was no fun being on the ships, especially during a storm and everything. During the first trip, I had a really bad time. But during the third trip, even though sometimes it was also very rough — the sea — I was not seasick at all.

GALO: In other words, you got used to it.

Leonard: Yeah, I think so.

At this point, laughter could be heard from all three of us.

GALO: The scene of the monument with the names is quite an emotional one, especially when the camera closes in on the aunt and the little boy whose grandfather had drowned. However, the most impactful moment is when the boy asks if his father’s boat won’t sink and states that it cannot sink because it is a bigger boat, a better boat, and cannot ever do so. This moment showcases not only the pain that the families go through but the uncertainty that the fisherman hold in regards to what the next day or night could bring. Could you talk a little about this and why you wanted to showcase both sides?

Hetty: Most of the country [Holland] is below sea-level. Holland is always fighting with the sea. The slogan of our country is “I am fighting and I will survive.” So all the houses are also below sea-level, and the people in Holland live with the sea. And for 800 years they are fishing for herring and risking their own lives. I knew that a lot of people there, in that community, lost their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers, etc.; always the men. And I knew there was a memorial, so I planned to shoot it. By coincidence, the wife of one of the fishermen told me that there would be this memorial and that her cousin would be there who had lost her father when she was only four-years-old. When I talked with her before, she had already gotten emotional, not how she had been in the film, but still emotional. So I told Leonard, “be there, be with them and stay with them.” So he did. In the film you see her crying because it was very emotional for her to remember that she lost her father. That was a common fault of all ships, as there was a rope and that rope grabbed her father and threw him overboard.

Leonard: It was actually more than that because one of the nets got stuck and it sucked the whole ship underwater so the whole family was lost there, it was only the one person whose body they had found.

Hetty: And that was not so many years ago. So it’s still an issue [today] that all those fishermen are risking their lives to feed their families.

GALO: Yeah, as mentioned, I thought it was quite impactful when the little boy says “this can’t happen to my father’s boat.”

Hetty: Yeah, he was very worried. You can see it on his face. The thing is, with single shot cinema, Leonard could be close to his face and also follow his gaze to the sea, watching…you know, you can read in his eyes “where’s my father, where’s my father…?” So the viewer hopes he will survive this trip, that’s what you can read. Because Leonard followed the eyes…that’s the only thing you can do with single shot cinema. I make documentaries myself with another cameraman and I know now what the limits of that are. And in that case, I miss Leonard as my cameraman [chuckles].

Leonard: Because I don’t have the camera in front of me, I have it away from my body. So for the little boy, I am different than my camera, so I can put the camera just in front of his face and he will look through the camera, even though he isn’t looking at the camera. So you see his gaze looking toward the horizon, far away…

Hetty: Because you can make tilts or whatever you want. You don’t need a tripod; otherwise you will miss the moment. Leonard can shoot the reality of what’s really happening at that moment.

Leonard: Yeah, I don’t have to be physically behind the camera. I just put the camera onto the right place, where you want the camera to express the emotion.

GALO: The documentary emphasizes upon a problem that the fishermen are facing — they’re having a harder time finding substantial amounts of fish. Can you talk a little bit about this in relation to the documentary and the impact it might have on future generations of fishermen? In fact, at one point, I think, one fisherman on another boat says that they’ve seen very little and that there’s more in shallow water.

Hetty: Yes, the thing is that the Norwegians and the Swedish and the Danish, they take over the whole herring fishing. But in Holland, the tradition is to eat the herring raw, so everybody in Holland is looking forward to the months of May and July when the new herring comes. Most people in Holland think that it is Dutch ships that are catching the herring, but because of a lot of rules, it was forbidden to fish in the North Sea — this was in the ’80s. The Dutch ships were still looking for herring and catching them but under the Norwegian flag or under other countries’ flags. So right now, there are only two herring boats remaining under the Dutch flag that are catching the fish and preparing the fish in a very traditional way, the Dutch way. So all those fishermen, they not only have to catch the fish, but they also have to prepare the fish on the boat. It’s frozen when they come onshore. And every year they have to decide whether it’s possible in an economical way for those two herring ships to go out fishing; every year there is a discussion with the boss of the fishermen – the fish company – about this. And that’s why we made this film. We thought that last year, it would be the last time when those two fishing boats would be going out to sea to fish. But now I heard this year that they will go again. But maybe next year it will be the final time.

(Interview continued on next page)