Night

A documentary of seasonal anchovy workers on the coasts of Turkey’s Black Sea, storied with a camera given to the young workers to document their own lives.

Özel: Born in 1981. Oldest of 4 brothers. While his brothers are away from home working at construction sites, he opted to be an anchovy worker. He has worked in mines and stone quarries as well.

Ali: Born in 1989. He started to work when he was a child when his father fell ill. He is working as a wage-laborer since he was 15.

Bagelman: Born in 1986. He started to work in textile industries at the age of 12.

Ahmet: Born in 1986. He started to work at the age of 14 in mines. All the members of his family make butter and cheese during the week and sell them at the marketplace on the weekends.

These young men of the Eastern Black Sea region start working in fields, constructions, mines and fishing boats almost as children. And each winter they come together on coast of Black Sea, for anchovy fishing. They work on docks, waiting for the loaded boat to come, to unload, package and load them to trucks for markets.

Throughout winter months when is anchovy season, these men set up tents where they spent long hours waiting for the arrival of anchovy boats, sleep in buses they are brought with, and break up camps to go another dock following the route of anchovy boats.

Every year following three months of busy pace; hard work lasting long hours through day and night, tons of packaged fish, loads of brewed tea, hundreds of touching songs listened, innumerable phone calls made, thousands of text messages sent, the crew breaks and Özel, Ali, Kadir, Ahmet and their friends return home.

This documentary called “Night” tells about a typical winter of anchovy land crew.