Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

If you’re not famil­iar with David Clark’s work show­cas­ing com­mer­cial fish­ing in visu­al arts, this week­end presents a great oppor­tu­ni­ty. The JuneauTek blog­ger cre­at­ed the Com­mer­cial Fish­ing Film Fes­ti­val, now on its sec­ond year. Whether you hope to catch a glimpse of some­one you know (or your­self!) or crave the vic­ar­i­ous thrill of going to sea with­out leav­ing your home, this year’s fes­ti­val includes some stun­ning entries. I’m shar­ing Dav­e’s press release below; please check out the sec­ond annu­al Com­mer­cial Fish­ing Film Fes­ti­val this week­end and vote on your favorites.

The Com­mer­cial Fish­ing Film Fes­ti­val is a cel­e­bra­tion of the hard­work­ing men and women who share the per­ilous beau­ty of work­ing at sea. Noto­ri­ous­ly good sto­ry­tellers, fish­er­men and women have always shared their adven­tures and anec­dotes, yet the Com­mer­cial Fish­ing Film Fes­ti­val is the first of its kind, show­ing an online com­mu­ni­ty the ­­­great­est moments of fish­ing through the best of user gen­er­at­ed con­tent. The fes­ti­val brings togeth­er a vari­ety of inde­pen­dent videos from ama­teurs and pro­fes­sion­als alike and pro­vides a grow­ing audi­ence with the finest of videog­ra­phy and raw adven­ture. At the same time, the fes­ti­val cre­ates a unique and col­lec­tive voice for the industry.

In its sec­ond year, the Com­mer­cial Fish­ing Film Fes­ti­val will take place Jan­u­ary 11 — 13. All videos are avail­able for live-stream­ing at ComFishFilmFest.com, and view­ers are invit­ed to vote for their favorites in five cat­e­gories: High­lin­ers show­cas­es the best in edit­ing and pro­duc­tion, Hope­fuls high­lights edgy and immer­sive first­hand video with lit­tle edit­ing, The “Super­bowl” of Sein­ing focus­es on footage from the Sit­ka sac roe fish­ery, infa­mous­ly known to be dan­ger­ous and high­ly lucra­tive, Fish Doc­u­men­taries draws atten­tion to edu­ca­tion­al videos that per­tain to issues vital to fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and, last but not least, Bycatch col­lects the odd­i­ties that shock and sur­prise. Win­ners will be fea­tured in a cul­mi­nat­ing web event Jan­u­ary 11 – 13.

Found­ed in 2009, Juneautek.com is a com­mer­cial fish­ing web­site which high­lights the lives of real com­mer­cial fish­er­men. Addi­tion­al­ly inter­est­ed in fish­ing indus­try pol­i­tics and events, the site is fea­tured on the web­site of well­known trade jour­nal Nation­al Fish­er­man. Unlike many com­mer­cial­ized fea­tures about fish­ing, the site is dri­ven by a com­mu­ni­ty style inter­est in shar­ing the true sto­ry of what fish­er­men and women do and who they are.”

 

Photo courtesy of David Clark

Pho­to cour­tesy of David Clark

 

The Film Fest is live as I type, friends — enjoy! Know­ing that Hooked’s vis­i­tors are such a mixed crowd of fish­er­folks and non, I’d love to hear your respons­es to the fes­ti­val. What did you see? What did you think? What did you feel?