La carnada

La carnada is a surrealist portrait of the fisherwoman Maria (Mónica Sánchez), who lives in Peru. Since she washed ashore as a baby on the coast of Peru, she has maintained a special bond with the sea. She gets her income from the salt water – as a woman challenging the conventions in the traditional fishing village – while she also trusts her emotions to the unpredictable waves. The tides coincide with her stormy character. When her fisherman friend and lover Juan (Orlando Felices) one day decides to sign on to work on an industrial fishing vessel, she rebels. She is a supporter of the traditional way of fishing, with a hand-knotted net and a small sailing boat. When fishing she would rather trust her luck than a boss. But her protest is not enough to convince her lover, who has dollar signs in his eyes. He leaves her behind in the village, pregnant. The price she has to pay for her stubbornness is loneliness. According to the Peruvian film-maker Marianne Eyde, born in Norway, her own life is also shaped by the sea. She sees a great similarity between the sea and human nature. Using a lot of dream images in La carnada, she stresses that the spirit, just like the sea, is not very controllable. Even when the struggle to survive is so rough, there will always be dreams.