WALK the tideline (2021)

Directed by Anna Antsalo

Production: Venla Hellstedt & Juha Löppönen/Tuffi Films (Finland)

Documentary Feature (58 mins)

Beachcombers are people who traverse coastlines looking for treasures. Some beaches are littered with light bulbs, others with Lego blocks or ancient bones, all of them brought in by the ocean currents. The seas cover 71% of the Earth and they are in constant movement, but we know more about the moon than we know about our oceans. Old nautical charts used to mark unknown waters with images of monsters or with text indicating: “Here be monsters”. 

As the tides swing, the shorelines reveal new items and phenomena each moment. By observing these objects, discarded dreams and paraphernalia, we come face to face our own fears and hopes. 

Rob, who lives in Cornwall, cannot leave any piece of rubbish on the beach if he has touched it. Cleaning beaches has become an obsession for him. Rob sees himself as a civic scientist, collecting the treasures and things he retrieves in a sea container filled with all sorts of finds.

Jolanda is a Dutch Archaeologist whose passion is beachcombing. She studies the erosion of objects to understand the impact that time itself leaves. Her partner Lonneke is an artist who collects objects that have an interesting shape or colour.

Shige, and artist and beachcomber in Japan, is afraid of the sea. He believes that the shoreline is the boundary between life and death. He draws and paints his finds from the beach, mostly seeds and parts of animals.

Through the objects we discover on our beaches, the film creates a portrait of us. While the sea separates people, it also unites us in unexpected ways. What we leave behind, the sea preserves and spits out into the future as a message from bygone times.

SELECTED Festival screenings

Docpoint Helsinki

CPH:Dox

DocAviv

Noordelijk Film Festival

Prague Science Film Festival

Newport Beach Film Festival