Craft is not two-dimensional or linear. It is interwoven, complex, and beautiful. Over the last years, while collecting stories with studio davidpompa, I feel that we often flattened these layers and stories behind craft into an artistic but kind of artificial, instagrammable abstraction.
During this year’s prep for Art Week, when we we were first introduced the story behind Contramar’s sourcing of seashells, it felt very natural to share the entire process and journey behind the collaboration — as honestly as the short video format allows. The aim was to answer the questions viewers might naturally have about the collaboration - in an entertaining, cinematic and educational way.
Although I study commercial directing in Germany — a program largely focused on fictional advertising — I’ve become increasingly invested into directing branded documentaries with companies that have meaningful stories to tell. It feels far more rewarding to uncover and condense complex, real stories than to write fictional commercials. David once joked about putting up a small metal plaque at my university, engraved with a statement about his supporting role in my branded documentary directing education. Fragmentos de mar is so far my favourite film from my years-long collaboration with the studio.
Together with my amazing producer Noemi Díaz from the studio, we spent a few days in Puerto Libertad documenting the divers’ unbelievable work of sustainably collecting seashells by hand. We were overwhelmed with the many additional stories we encountered there — in a small town, separated from the next village by hundreds of kilometres of cactus desert. Freediving myself with Gabriel and later trying his compressed air breathing system was just one memorable aspect of the adventure.
We were welcomed with unbelievable kindness by Gabriel, Graciela and their family. Evenings were spent on the backseats of quad bikes in the desert dunes, at the fluorescent ocean water and with homemade dinners that Gabriel might have specifically designed for us to fall in love with Sonora even more.
Writing this now, I feel homesick for a place where I only spent a few days. The community in Puerto Libertad — and the food — is something that really has to be experienced in person. Filming in the kitchen of Contramar was another highlight for me.
Making this film brought together everything that made me fall in love with México in the first place: its people, nature, food and its richness of unbelievable, extreme and fascinating stories around craft and culture.
