Arts & Culture

“MAN”: A LIFE FOR NATURE

November 2002 in Galicia. A super tanker, the Prestige, sinks in the abysses of the Atlantic Ocean. Her black gold spreads across the western coasts of Europe, and especially on Camelle: a small fishermen village located on a part of the Spanish coastline know as the “Coast of the Dead”, for the Sea has fed as many as it has taken. A German called Man chose some forty years ago to settle down in Camelle so as to accomplish his dream of living closer to nature. But came the disaster which unrelentingly massacred flora and wildlife. With the face of a Christ shattered with sorrow, Man cried: “It’s a world of oil which destroys me”. He couldn’t bear the sight of his museum soiled by the oil slick and would rather leave this world for another. He thus became the Prestige’s martyr and the symbol of the popular uproar of revolt. In letting himself die, Man stirred the conscience of the masses. It’s a whole people which now chants: “Todos somos Man”. The film portraits both the man and the sensitive relationship between pain, mourning and hope, transcended by the unity of the Galicians’ rebellion. Determined to put an end to the failures of the administration, they have fought the battle against these pirates of the modern era, in accordance with Man’s principles. It’s Man’s lifelong commitment to this cause that the Galician people has therefore posthumously acknowledged.