Film Description

Taking a harsh look at the suffering of the impoverished fishermen of Mwanza, Tanzania, this film provides a scathing commentary on the state of emergency in this community brought about by globalization. The Nile perch, a species of enormous fish, was introduced into Lake Victoria as an experiment in the 1960s. Since then the fish has wiped out the lake's other marine life and also become the region's most profitable export. Everyone with a stake in the market downplays the ecological disaster and pays no mind to the nagging fact that the locals are starving to death. The meaty fish feeds two million Europeans every day, but residents on Victoria's shores have nothing to eat except the discarded, rotting scraps. Politicians ignore the problem. "We're here to sell our countries, sell our fish, sell the lake," they say. One man compares the situation to the golden age of colonialism, with natural resources replacing land as the bounty for the self-proclaimed strongest of the species. Darwin's Nightmare is a haunting reminder of the consequences of capitalism and a deeply disturbing portrait of the appalling inequities that result from the endless pursuit of profit.