Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, April 16: SUSHI: THE GLOBAL CATCH
Mark Hall’s exploration of the impact of the global appetite for sushi made its world premiere at Seattle in 2011, where it won a special jury prize. The film scored additional wins at the Hawaii Ocean Film Festival and the San Francisco Green Film Festival, in addition to screening at IDFA, Vancouver, Planete Doc, Biografa, and Tallgrass, among others. FilmBuff now makes the doc available on iTunes, Amazon, Movies on Demand, PlayStation, XBOX, Vudu, and CinemaNow.
Recognizing that sushi has long ago moved from its original home in Japan to become a worldwide cuisine of choice, the film details some of the consequences of its expansive appeal. Culturally, when it traditionally took long years of apprenticeship to become a sushi master, the demand has led to shortcuts and surprising regional-driven variations on the food. Economically and environmentally, the situation is decidedly more troubling, as Hall demonstrates with a particular focus on bluefin tuna. With the growth of sushi consumption in new markets – China in particular is singled out, but Russia and Brazil aren’t far behind – there’s a significant threat to even the short term sustainability of this species of tuna, not to mention other sealife that lives with it in a delicate ecological balance. While the film perhaps aims to be too comprehensive and suffers by spreading its net too wide, it brings up thoughtful points about sustainable production and responsible consumption, profiling different initiatives and their advocates, while simultaneously presenting viewers with engaging history about the cuisine.
what (not) to doc 